I have thought many time about obituaries and what are contained in them. Just recently, I have even considered writing my own for later use. Last night as I was laying in my bed, the thought came to me about what would be written in mine as I went to sleep. This morning, when I woke up, I had a message from my aunt Doris that my cousin Helen Morris Paige had died. I don't know if this is a premonition or not but it has happened 3 times in the past three months. When James died, when RM died and now when Helen died. Here are some memories about Helen. You may have heard them before but it doesn't hurt to remember them again.
I spent a lot of time at Helen's house when I was growing up. She was a little older than me. Probably would be the same age as aunt Josie's daughter
(Joy Sue) that died. I know she spent a lot of time with Josie at the florist and even worked for her after she married. I remember her coming to clean aunt Josie's house. She was always doing things like that to make a little extra money. Her husband, Billy Paige, worked for his dad in a garage. Sometimes, that work load was light and the money didn't go far. But I am sure she had a good life with her boys, Tim and Terry.
She liked coming to my house because the movies theaters were very close. It's funny that when I was little we called them "Shows." "Can we go to the Show," we would ask and then we would go around the neighborhood raising money for the "Show." It didn't matter what was playing, we just wanted to go. Westerns, love stories, sailing ships, Tarzan, wars, The three Stooges, comedy, we saw them all. I saw some crazy, frightening movies and would always hold Helen's hand when I got scared.
She is the one that got me started watching scary movies. We would read about them first in the comics and when they were on the TVs. Dracula and Frankenstein were my favorite. The black and white seemed to be more frightening that the color because we had to use our imagination.
Helen loved to read "True Romance" and "True Confession" magazines. She was always telling me about the love stories before I knew about boys. Sometimes I thought they were funny and sometimes they made me cry. But I would listen to her read them to me when I stayed all night with her. Then we would make up our own stories. We would play dress up and fix our hair. Helen loved "red" fingernail polish and I do mean "red." If it wasn't red, then she didn't want it. And false fingernails. Now my mom had long fingernails and kept them manicured so we wanted long fingernails like hers. We would go to the dime store on Broad street, on the bus, and buy a box of false fingernails. Then we would get busy gluing them on the end of our fingers. I was a nail biter and mine were always short. I never left much to fasten the nail onto so Helen would take a cuticle stick and make some room. Sometimes it hurt and I would cry and she would say "don't be a baby." I realized when I was grown, that I was her guinea pig.
I talked to my cousin, Jean, this morning and she was telling me about her mom (Aunt Beatrice) and Helen playing cards on the week-ends when the guys went fishing. They loved to play Rummy. I can barely remember playing "Go fish" with her. Now she has gone to a better place. I know her last days were filled with pain. After her heart attack, she had to take a lot of pills. She had a lot of grief about having to leave her apartment and give up all her personal things. But we can't take anything with us when we leave this world. I saw her at a reunion a couple of years ago and she was still smoking. Everyone wanted her to quit but you know that she didn't have much joy in this life and I just told them to leave her alone. Her church was her joy and so was her smoking. Many times when I called her before she moved, she would be getting ready for church, "Hollywood Baptist Church" in East Rome.
Everyone has to leave this old world some day. Some younger than others, but we will all definitely be leaving one day. Good Bye, Helen. You will be missed by all.
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