How Deep is Your Love

Hueytown is not as quaint as it sounds. I have nothing against it necessarily, but I don’t want you to think it’s Mayberry. There’s no Main Street or pretty sidewalks through town. But the Alabama city does have a church on every corner, and if it were ever a contest, I’m sure the residents would win first place for the amount of sweet tea consumed on a daily basis.

I was a kid in the 80s in a small, Southern, Reagan-loving community. Aunt Virginia -- or Ginny, as we called her -- my mom's oldest sister, stood out like a loudspeaker at a silent meditation retreat. She was a firecracker with wiry, brown hair and a booming laugh -- she didn't understand the concept of silence. When she was around, it seemed like everyone was always saying, "Bless your heart."

She drove an old Lincoln Town Car, the kind with the cloth on top. The scent of sharp florals and powdered perfume was a permanent experience inside the car that would steal the breath from your lungs. Mom didn't let me ride with her for fear she would never see me again. But what mom didn't know wouldn't hurt her, right? Ginny would sneak me away for adventures outside of Hueytown, and though I wouldn't miss those excursions for the world, I bargained my entire future with whatever god would listen if my life would be spared. Riding with Ginny was like being on a roller coaster that ventured off the rails. Terrifying doesn't even begin to describe it.

I was different, and I didn't have many friends. I guess I was just like Ginny in that way -- an outsider that didn't fit in. It's not that Hueytown was too small, Ginny and I were too big. People didn't understand us. Most of the time, Ginny wore bright red lipstick and a pair of Lee overalls picked up at the Thrift-A-Lot. That's where all the coal miners offloaded their old stuff. Every once in a while, she'd put lipstick on me too, though if my mom ever found out, it would be the last thing Ginny and I ever did together. Ginny introduced me to Disco music as we whirled through the streets, listening at top decibel with the windows rolled down. By the time I was 12 years old, I knew the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever better than I knew my multiplication tables.

Every year since first grade, on the Tuesday following my birthday, Ginny checked me out of school for an Aunt Virginia Birthday Extravaganza. We'd always go to Wendy's for a Frosty and fries. She'd take me to the pet store where I'd pick out some exotic creature, like a giant millipede or hissing cockroach. I still have my tarantula, Hairy -- he's 14 years old.

When I was in the 9th grade, Ginny checked me out, and I was clearly not having a good day. Instead of pulling out of the school's parking lot, she made me talk to her.

She said, "There's no use in bottling up bad feelings. Why save them? Go on, get 'em out."

Holding back my tears was a futile effort. I probably gave Ginny way more than she thought she'd get, telling her for as long as I could remember, I was bullied. Earlier that day, a group of older guys locked me in a bathroom stall and weaponized all kinds of words against me -- words I'd been called my whole life.

That's all Ginny needed to hear.

"You stay right here, Puddin' Cup," the name she gave me when I was an infant, "I'll be back in 10 minutes." Before I could beg her not to say anything, she was inside the school, the car door still ajar. In a matter of seconds, I saw her standing in the office, the principal and guidance counselor gesturing for her to calm down. I melted into my seat.

Ginny slammed the car door shut behind her. We drove for what seemed like hours in total silence. I jumped out of my skin when she belted,

"I believe in you, you know the door to my very soul, you're the light in my deepest, darkest hour, you're my savior when I fall. And you may not think I care for you when you know down inside that I really do. And it's me you need to show."

She held an imaginary mic in my direction and a gigantic smile filled her face. We sang the chorus to How Deep Is Your Love together.

We didn't go to Wendy's that day. Ginny packed a picnic and drove me four hours to the Gulf of Mexico -- Orange Beach, Alabama. It was still cold outside, in early February, so we bundled up and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drank hot chocolate as we listened to the waves crash.

"Look at me," she said. "I'm gonna tell you something that I wish somebody had told me 30 years ago. You are perfect just the way you are. You don't need to change for anybody or anything. Just be yourself, okay?"

Tears were rolling down her face, and I knew she needed to say more. She took a giant bite of her sandwich, stalling the inevitable.

"I'm not always going to be here, and you have to learn to stick up for yourself. I don't think you'll have to worry at school anymore, but the world is a mean place sometimes."

She looked out into the ocean and gulped the hot chocolate.

"You're the first person I've told, and I don't know how to say this." It was the softest I had ever heard her speak. "I'm sick, and the doctors say I don't have much longer to live."

That was the last Aunt Virginia Birthday Extravaganza I ever had. Almost three months to the day after my birthday, she was gone.

Nothing will ever fill the void. You can't replace magic. Ginny wasn't a star, she was a supernova. She was my universe.

Ginny had one request -- she wanted everyone to sing How Deep Is Your Love at her memorial. Hundreds of people showed up -- people I had known my whole life, people I heard her talk about in her stories, people that didn't know her but whose friends or family she had helped. Through tears and laughter, we all sang Ginny's song, and the service morphed into an open mic celebration of her life.

In the following weeks, mom and I went through Ginny's belongings. She had left everything to us. Under the bed, we found a box, wrapped in rainbow paper with a sticker that said, "For Puddin' Cup."

Inside the box was a notebook tied closed with a ribbon upon which Ginny had attached this note:

Dear precious child,

I don't have much in the way of material possessions because I've tried to keep only what brings me joy and those things are mostly what you can't hold in your hand. They're just memories -- in my opinion, those are what matter most. Memories are the way we remember how deeply we love. There's not enough time make bad memories, so don't even try. You'll know. If your memories aren't good ones, it probably means you need to love a little deeper. The best memories of my life are the ones I made with you. In this little black book, I've written an entry for each of the past nine Aunt Virginia Birthday Extravaganzas. I challenge you, Puddin' Cup, to go make good memories. The last entry is something to help get you started.

I love you deep,

Ginny

I sobbed, aching for Ginny to be there. Mom and I cried for the rest of the day. We laughed too as we stumbled upon things we knew made Ginny happy. We found a Mr. Potato Head that she had glued eyes all over and mounted onto a plaque that said I Only Have Eyes for You. She had a collection of trolls, the kind with the rhinestone belly buttons, to which she had given each a different hairstyle. And at last count, she had 211 rocks she had painted silly phrases on stashed around her house.

It was almost the end of summer. School was starting again, and I was nervous to go back. I headed over to Ginny's house for some alone time. I danced to Ginny's collection of Disco vinyls and sorted through all of her vintage Tupperware. Then, I sat in her chair and finally mustered the courage to open Ginny's little black book.

She wrote pages for each year, starting with my first grade birthday. I remembered her teaching me how to roller skate, erupting a volcano in her garage, inner tubing down the river, building a tree house, and our trip to the beach earlier that year. All the best memories playing in my mind as I read them from the pages. I had forgotten what she said about the last entry. It was supposed to help me make good memories. Dated April 28th, it was straightforward, and I could almost hear Ginny saying it out loud:

"In a secret compartment under the kitchen sink, there's a box. Inside is $20,000. It's yours. There's only one catch. You can't spend it on yourself alone. Spend it in Hueytown or in China, on friends old and new. Spend it on people who need it and who aren't expecting it. But whoever you spend it on, use it to make good memories -- to show how deep is your love. And each time you spend, write an entry in this little black book."

I've spent almost all of the $20,000 Ginny gave me, so this is the last entry I'll write. Though no money was spent on me, per se, I feel like I'm richer than ever before. I have a bank of memories worth more than anything in the world.

Ginny gave me all that she had. Not just her money, but her time and wisdom -- and most of all her love. Now, I'll do the same.

I'm using the the last little bit of money to start my own stash, which I will hide in the same spot in Ginny's house -- where I now live -- and will leave it to my nephew. Today is the Tuesday after his birthday, and I'm on my way to check him out of his first grade class.