Sunday, August 30, 1998

The time we lit up the skies across Texas

By Sharon Randall

We met 30 years ago. I awoke one morning in a strange bed to find him standing over me, grinning, with a wooden hammer poised and ready to whack me on my head.

Even after all these years, the most striking part of that memory is not so much the hammer as the smile.

Adam could really light up a room. Which came in handy for a boy who liked whacking people with a hammer. He got it from his mother. The smile, not the whacking. She could light up a room and everyone in it. Especially when she smiled at Adam.

Shirley was my favorite aunt, my mother's baby sister. Her husband, Joe, was my favorite uncle before he was even my uncle. They were high school sweethearts. She was captain of the cheerleading squad. He was captain of the football team. I was 4 years old and crazy about both of them. I would pretend I was their little girl and they never corrected me on it.

Went everywhere

They took me with them everywhere, to go swimming or to get ice cream. But they didn't take me with them when they moved to California, even though I tried to stow away in the back seat of their car. They kept in touch, remembered me at Christmas and on my birthday. They'd call my grandmother long-distance and ask to speak to me. Just me. Not my cousins. On my worst days, I still pretended I was their girl. Never really present, they were always a presence in my life.

The summer I turned 20, I blew my life's savings on a standby ticket to California and flew out to visit them. When I walked in their door, I knew I'd come home.

Next morning I met Adam and his hammer grin. He was 2, adopted at birth, the long-awaited answer to their prayers. I never saw a child more loved or wanted or happy.

"That's it," I thought, "that's how it should be."

I lived with them a year, one of the happiest of my life once I hid that hammer. They introduced me to the Yankee I would marry. My wedding day, Adam woke me as usual with a grin, then whacked me with the hammer he found under my bed.

So I stayed in California with the Yankee and had three children, all wanted, all loved and all usually happy. Joe and Shirl moved to Texas. Adam grew into a young man.

The last time I saw him was 12 years ago at his mother's funeral. Since then, it's been mostly Christmas cards. But when Joe called recently to invite me to Adam's wedding, I was so glad to be remembered.

Canyon near Amarillo

It was going to be a small wedding, he said, outdoors in a canyon near Amarillo, where record-breaking heat had been buckling railroad tracks.

"I'll be there," I said, jotting a note: "Dress cool, pack snake kit, buy wooden hammer for wedding gift."

So last weekend I flew to Amarillo, met my uncle and his new wife and stood on the rim of a breathtaking canyon to witness the marriage of my favorite aunt's only child.

As the sun was setting, the clouds parted and colors danced on the canyon walls.

Adam grinned his hammer grin and we laughed, everyone of us: His bride, his friends, his dad and his stepmom, me and my aunt Shirley.

I wish you could've seen us. We lit up all of Texas.

Scripps Howard News Service