Memories from Myra

by Myra Matthews

Life Moves on and Marjorie found Love in all the wrong places. One day, out of nowhere, at three o’clock we got the call - Marjorie was getting married at seven that night in Harmony and we were to be there!

  WHAT??

  Yup, Marjorie and her man, Lee, had been asked to stand with Lee's sister at their wedding.  Well, Marjorie had her own brain wave -  since we're all dressed up and standing in front of a minister why not make it a double wedding?

   I think the other bride and groom were as shocked as we were! Yet, two hours later Rhada McCulloch, Glenda Blackburn, and myself were sitting in the back seat of Marjorie's Dad’s car heading to a wedding. The whole thing thing seemed surreal.

   Joanie’s (Marj’s sister) husband, Bob, who happened to be Lee’s uncle was driving. Marjorie's dad was not taking this news well. He was literally in tears saying, “How could Marjorie ? She’s ruining her life.”

Bob, who couldn't stop laughing, said under his breath, “This is never going to happen. Lee is not that crazy.”  But he was and it did. It never bothered Marjorie, nor did it ruin her life. She just moved on to the next chapter.

   That next chapter was when I, Myra, was turning 40. My friends had a little get together and Marjorie arrived with a bottle of wine she had made herself.  I'm not a drinker but I did say, “Let's crack this bad boy open.” No one else even wanted to taste it.

   The first sip was disgusting. Once you got past the taste it was an instant buzz though. I said, “Hey, Marjorie. This is pretty good. How did you make it?”   She went into great detail from picking the fruit step by step to the final stage of bottling it.

Marjorie said, “I didn't have any cheesecloth to strain the bugs and flies out of the fruit so I just used an old pair of my pantyhose.” This time it was Myra who took the vow, “Lord, never again will wine touch these lips of mine.”

Switching to another story: now,  if you're on Facebook, and most people are, Facebook asks this burning question, “Is there anyone you should not sit beside at a funeral?” Well, I  almost spit my coffee out when I read that. You see, there was this one time Marjorie and I were at a funeral, sitting quietly, waiting for the service to begin when the undertaker walked by and separated us. He was taking no chances -  NOPE, not on his watch -  NO Sir, that the two of us were going to sit together! We both knew Alan McLeod, the Funeral Director,  and over the years this had become a joke among us.

Still another time,  the “Real Housewives of East Noel,” as we called ourselves, were sitting around the kitchen table having coffee. Years had passed since those days when Joanie and Rhada had faithfully walked three miles to visit the elderly blind lady I mentioned in an early story.  Our talk that day was about how Lean’s old house was being tore down. Rhada and Joanie said of all the times they'd spent visiting Lean they had never got past the kitchen.  Both said how much they would have loved to have seen the rest of the house.

Marjorie and I both spoke at once and said we had seen it. The shock on Joanie and Rhada’s faces was priceless! “No way!”  they said.

“Yes, we did! We got the Grand Tour from the bottom to the top. All you had to do was ask.” (Marjorie wanted this little story added because any time we upstaged Joanie and Rhada was a High 5 moment for us – I’m sure Rhada is looking down on me now asking who gave me control of the pen!)

When Marjorie decided to get married again, she asked me if I would give a speech to the bride. Well, news of this went flying through the community fast!  For most weddings people wonder who will be in the wedding party or what the bride will be wearing, but, in this case, the question was, “What would Myra say?” with so many stories to choose from.

The night of the wedding I was a bundle of nerves. I'm not a public speaker and what a huge crowd it was. I stood at the end of the bride’s table, shaking with nerves. Sitting beside me was Dick's, the groom’s, twin brother and his wife from England.  I wondered how this was ever going to go over?

The more Dick’s brother laughed, the more confidence I got and when it came to the wine story the bride knew what was coming. A little embarrassed she yelled from the opposite end of the table, “Myra, they were a brand new pair of pantyhose.”

 I answered back, “No, they weren't because when I was sipping my wine I got this great big hairball caught in my throat.” Then I produced a massive ball of black thread, the size of a bowling ball, and I tossed it to the bride.  We had spent a week at work making that bad boy just for this special occasion and Dick’s brother lost it! So did everyone else.

Afterwards, Dick’s brother told me that over the years he'd attended many weddings in England; he had heard a lot of speeches but he'd never heard one like this before. This time Marjorie had found true love and she lived her best life with

Dick.