mortensorchid Posted August 15, 2011 Posted August 15, 2011 Last Saturday, I had dinner at my friend's sister's house. I had heard bits and pieces of this story over the years, but it was fleshed out for me. My friend Bob (not his real name) and his sister Martha (also not her real name) told a story about their grandmother and these two guys, Bubba and Earl. Apparently, years ago, Granny had a secret love, a man named Bubba. Bubba left for Korea to fight in the Korean War for many months. When he returned, there was some rumor going around that he had contracted VD. Back in those days, I guess there were things that you did and did not do or say. If a rumor like that was going around about you, it was a great source of shame. Granny rejected Bubba because of this. Whether or not this was true remains to be seen. Granny never got over Bubba, and one day she met Earl. She didn't really feel the same way about Earl, she said, but she felt that Earl "would always be there", and she married Earl who became their grandfather. Granny and Earl did not have a happy marriage. There were rumors that Earl was not faithful in his marriage to Granny, but the two of them were together for forty years until he died. Granny would die at the age of 90, having passed down this tale to her kids and grandkids. In fact, when she was on her deathbed, she told the minister that she hoped she would be forgiven for harboring a terrible secret. The minister asked what secret she was talking about, she said that she had loved another man for all her life and knew that she didn't really love her husband, Earl, as she thought she should've. Not too long ago, Martha was going through some of Granny's things and found something. In a decorative, ceramic chicken with a lid on it, Martha found some letters and a photograph. They were love letters she had written but never sent to Bubba over the years, telling him that she loved him more than he would ever know even though she had been married to Earl all this time. Despite all of Earl's antics, she would always love Bubba. The only photograph found in the chicken was cut into a small oval. They realized that this had been kept in a locket, and it fit the locket that she always wore around her neck. Bubba had returned to Korea and had been killed in the war on his second tour of duty, he was forever 21 in her mind. Love echoed through the ages ...
utterer of lies Posted August 16, 2011 Posted August 16, 2011 A fantasy to hold on forever requires that there's no chance for it to ever come true.
Stung Posted August 16, 2011 Posted August 16, 2011 It's a sad story, because of all the wasted potential and unfulfilled lives. It's kind of touching to see it as a tragic romance, and that's certainly one way to look at it. I agree with the above poster, however, that it's largely a fantasy. Bubba's hold over poor Granny was so powerful precisely because he was always 21 to her, he was always that bright handsome youth who held out the promise of a different life. The memory and "what if" was her escape route from her unhappy reality. The sad part is that she resigned herself to marriage with someone she never really loved, and it sounds like at least part of her regretted it for the rest of her life. Presumably both she and Earl felt the chill of a loveless marriage, and Bubba felt the sting of misunderstanding and rejection before he died in battle...potentially all because of some slanderous gossip. Anyway, if Granny had held out and chosen more wisely a little later on, perhaps at least she and Earl would have found greater happiness in different partnerships, even if Bubba still met his unhappy end. I just don't really believe in the whole "soul mate" thing, but I do see how social mores of the time would have seemed like insurmountable obstacles to moving on and finding alternate happiness. I would have wished them all a happier ending.
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