The box is shaped like a treasure chest, about 18 inches long, 10 inches wide, 10 inches tall, dark distressed wood, wrapped in a copper ribbon and topped with a perfect, stiff copper bow. It once contained a Christmas present several years ago from a dear friend who, over many years, has given me lovely gifts – candles, a silver picture frame, a pink pashmina, crystal starfish, etc. – in containers so unique and interesting that I keep the boxes long after the gift has been used.
This particular box sits on a high shelf in my bedroom, serving as a decorative element that I could look at from time to time and think of my friend, our long friendship, and what he and that friendship mean to me.
But I wasn’t thinking about my friend or the box that morning when, while looking for something in a dresser drawer, I came across the plain, burgundy plastic container that had held the ashes of my dear Aunt Ginny for the past 25 years. As I often did, I told myself that I really should get her a proper urn because Aunt Ginny deserved more than to be tucked away in a drawer.
Aunt Ginny wasn’t really my aunt. She was more like a grandmother, but not quite that either. The wife of my father’s mentor, Virginia Dickerson was known by many, including Daddy and her husband, J. Maynard Dickerson, as “L’il Chief.” I’m not sure if that’s because she was the boss behind the scenes (although it’s hard to imagine anyone bossing Uncle Dick) or if there was some other origin of the moniker. But I always called her Aunt Ginny, probably the only person who did, just as no one else dared called J. Maynard “Uncle Dick” except the little girl who adored them.
Aunt Ginny and Uncle Dick didn’t have any children, so. Daddy was the closest thing they had to a son and that made me their only granddaughter. They were always wonderful to me, although Uncle Dick teased me mercilessly, calling me “FlipLip” because I talked so much.
When Daddy was a child, Uncle Dick, a prominent lawyer and publisher of the local Black newspaper, had taken Daddy under his wing and, in an uneasy collaboration with my grandmother, taught him much of what he needed to know to be the man he became. I later learned that he and Grammy butted heads a lot, with Grammy resenting the hold and influence Uncle Dick and Aunt Ginny had on her son. But Daddy was devoted to them and so was I.
In the summer of 1971, as we often did, my sister Pam and I spent a week with Aunt Ginny and Uncle Dick at their home in Columbus, sleeping in the big antique bed that once belonged to Aunt Ginny’s grandmother and seemed so huge and high and magnificent to me as a child. And, as she always did when we visited in the summer, Aunt Ginny took us to the Ohio State Fair.
But THIS time … The JACKSON 5 were playing!!!
Pam and I were beside ourselves at the thought of seeing our idols for the first time. We spent a lot of time preparing, carefully selecting our outfits: matching jumpsuits, hers was white with brown stripes, mine white with blue stripes. We knew we looked cute. And were sure that when we walked around the fair, we would run into the Jackson 5 and they would want to spend the day with us riding the rides and eating cotton candy and they would win us prizes and and try to sneak kisses and then ask us to be their girlfriends.
But first things first. The CONCERT. It was kind of a free-for-all – open seating, first-come-first served on the track, but Aunt Ginny got us there early and we managed to find a spot about halfway back. We stacked two wooden chairs on top of each other so we could get a better view and waited for Michael and Marlon and Jermaine and Tito and Jackie.
But we had to first endure the opening act. A woman named Yvonne Fair. OK. We’ll wait.
Next up … The Jackson 5!!!
But no. There was ANOTHER opening act. A group named The Commodores. They had big afros and wore lime green uniforms. They were kind of cute, and the tall guy in the middle had a nice, easy style that caught our eye. But they were also pretty old. They looked to be in their 20s. Who are these guys? And why are they here? And why are they singing for so long? We didn’t come to see them.
If only I could step back in time and have a word with 12-year-old Steffie in that moment …
This is what I’d tell her:
See those guys up there? They are going to play a big role in your life.
Ten years from now, you’re going to be working for them. Not for long – about a year during college, before you go to law school and become a lawyer and do lots of other interesting things.
But what a year! You will be their secretary and work in their studio and answer their fan mail and babysit their dogs and keep them on schedule. You’ll go to lots of their concerts – and some of those concerts will be at state fairs just like this one.
And they’ll even introduce you to Michael Jackson.
And that tall guy in the middle?
His name is Lionel. And he’ll be your lifelong friend.
You will share old private jokes only the two of you think are funny and laugh together until you can’t breathe, and talk and talk for hours. You will climb up the side of his house to slide into an open window when you lock yourself out (in your swimsuit, no less) after an early morning swim in his pool. You’ll fly with him in a helicopter over Buckingham Palace. You’ll ride together to the cemetery to bury the first Commodore to die.
You will come to know his family and he will become part of yours. He will love and revere Daddy and he will grieve with and comfort you when Daddy dies (don’t worry – that will be many many years from now).
You will confide in each other, fight with each other, sometimes stop speaking to each other, but always come back together because you’re the kind of friends who never stop loving each other and who will always be attached by the invisible string.
And over the years, he will remember your birthday and Christmas with lovely presents. Presents that come in very special boxes that, even empty, are gifts themselves …
Including a beautiful treasure chest-shaped box wrapped in a copper ribbon and stiff copper bow that you suddenly realized one morning is absolutely the perfect size for Aunt Ginny’s ashes.
And whenever you look at the box that now nestles Aunt Ginny as if specially made just for her, you will think of how deeply you cherish your precious friend, whom you first saw when you were 12 years old that time Aunt Ginny took you to see the Jackson 5 at the Ohio State Fair.
And you will be reminded, once again, how the invisible strings of friendship, family, love, and fate have woven a perfect vessel that carries and protects you through this improbable, but inevitable, life …
But does Steffie really need to know any of that now?
Nah …
Just enjoy the concert, little girl.