Synaptic

This assignment for Personal Essay is a narrative emphasizing characterization and plot elements. Dana’s unforgettable portrait of her Aunt Dianne also illustrates defamiliarization, or what Gerard Manley Hopkins styled as the “widowed image.” We remember Dianne for the unexpected layers of her character: her inimitable voice, her simultaneous affection and narcissism, and her defiance of authority. It is a tenderly funny narrative.

-Joshua Dolezal

---

Dianne plopped herself down in the floral recliner that looked like it had been snapped from Archie Bunker’s living room. Wiggled her behind to get situated. Pushed her glasses over the bridge of her nose. Slippery little suckers. They never could stay put. Rubbed her thighs with her hands as though she hoped to spark a flame right there in her lap, and clapped her tiny chapped hands gleefully.

“Oooooo doggie!” Her squeal and giggle exploded midair, showering us with grins and chuckles. “Birthday. Present time. I’m 30.”

“No Dianne. We’re going to chat for a while, and then you can open your gift,” corrected my grandma. Dianne puffed out her cheeks and blew air out the side of her mouth like she might burst from excitement if she didn’t leak a little out. She threw her head back thrusting her chin straight up in the air and let out a stifling yawn. I couldn’t help but feel the same way.

“You’re going to catch a fly,” chuckled my grandpa. His smile lines crinkled at the corner of his eyes.

“Buzzzzzzzz. No flies here you pipsqueak.” But just in case some of those buggers hadn’t made it on her radar, she threw her arms up for a few good swats. She needed some sustenance after that little fiasco.

“No presents. Cake time.”

***

My dad and I stepped into the house, making sure that the door closed behind us and peeked into my Aunt Dianne’s room. Her Coca-Cola bed spread showed not a single wrinkle and her walls were lined with magazine clippings of A&W Root Beer, hamburgers, and wedding announcements, but no Dianne.

Dianne had been diagnosed with Down syndrome as a baby. My grandparents tried their best to provide a normal childhood for Dianne. She went to school until she was 16, attended church, and had play dates with the neighbors. But as she started to grow up, this lifestyle became harder to maintain. When she turned 18, my grandparents finally made the tough decision of moving her to Village Northwest Unlimited. The Village is a community of people with disabilities living and working together on one campus. The campus had over 200 residents living in multiple cottages, allowing Dianne to build relationships with her peers and find a sense of pride and purpose through supporting herself.

The most important thing to remember when around Dianne is to keep an eye on her at all times – actually, two eyes would be best. She had a nasty habit of running away. It had happened at least six times. Enough times that the staff felt a need to insert sensors in her pink crocs to alert them when she made it within so many yards of the door. Dianne laughed in the face of shoe sensors. She must have noticed that someone always popped up when she made it close to the door; because before her last escapade out of the house, she had gouged the bottom of her crocs to remove the sensors. The doctors said that Dianne had the comprehension of a six year-old and the speech capabilities of a three year-old. I thought they were grossly underestimating her. After she got rid of the sensors, she had taken off and climbed up into a combine that she discovered in a corn field on the edge of town. I could just picture her in the seat, grasping the wheel in her hands admiring her perfectly painted nails – sparkly pink. Chipping was unacceptable. Dianne, Queen of the Crop. She must have gotten bored of reigning over the stalks after a while; because on her way down, she fell and broke her leg. My dad and I wanted to make sure she was recovering well. Plus I hadn’t had the chance to sign her cast yet. Debbie, a cottage employee, poked her head out from the kitchen.

“Oh hi, Robert and Dana. Dianne is in the sitting room watching Wheel of Fortune.” Of course. Silly us visiting during Wheel of Fortune. We made our way into living room to find Dianne with her leg up in an easy chair and firmly grasping a Diet Coke, mirroring the polar bears on her Coca-Cola robe.

“Bobert! Big brother!”

“Little sister, how is your leg doing?”

“Shhhh…Vanna is on.” No one dared to say another word. Once the sponsor advertisements flashed across the screen, Dianne grabbed Steve’s hand who was sitting in the recliner next to her. Steve was her friend – strictly friends. I had once made the mistake of calling him her boyfriend. I can still remember her furrowed eyebrows and stern face expression. “Steve not boyfriend. Friends.”

“But you hold hands and dance with Steve. That’s what people do with their boyfriends Dianne.” Steve and Dianne were always the couple at the annual ball fundraiser for the Village. No one could out dance them. “But Dianne have other friends too. Nick and Ted.” What a stud magnet. I didn’t know what her secret was.

Dianne used her other free hand to point at her light pink cast already graffitied with signatures.

“Scary, but God bless the combine.”

“God bless the combine,” murmured Steve. From that day on, that’s how Dianne ended every blessing at the dinner table. “God thank you for family and food.” There usually was some humming and incoherent singing in between, but it always finished the same – every time. “God bless the combine.”

***

The relationship between Dianne and I didn’t start out on the best of terms. Chalk it up to a French fry and my gender insecurities as a four year old. She couldn’t quite get my name down, so I became known as Dan.

Sunday afternoon. After dinner. I sat on the plush blue carpet of my grandparent’s living room in my red and black plaid dress with lace trim at the bottom. Dishes clanked and clattered in the kitchen as Grandma washed them and the rest of the grandkids dried them with flour sack towels. Sometimes I lucked out for being the youngest. Dianne held out her arms and started walking towards me from the dining room.

Dianne always visited Grandpa and Grandma’s house every Sunday afternoon. My grandma would place an open Coke can at the head of the table right by the remote. The television had to be turned to channel eleven, and my grandma couldn’t forget the plate with a single crinkle Ore-Ida French fry. Dianne had a highly sophisticated palate when it came to French fries. None of that off-brand crap. I unfortunately made the fatal mistake of eating the Ore-Ida fry and taking a swig from the Coke.

Dianne came in the front door with Grandpa and made a beeline for her chair, only to find that there was not a crinkle fry and a full can of Coke waiting for her. That was traumatic.

“Orrrrrrreeeeeee-Ida! No fry!” She flopped down to the ground and began flailing her legs in the air. But in the middle of her meltdown, she caught me in the corner of her eye.

“Dan ate my fry!” All of my family members looked at me and shook their head – some with pity, others with disappointment. Meltdown number two. This time it was mine. There were lots of tears in the time-out corner.

So after the French fry blunder, I wasn’t too hip on running into Dianne’s open arms.

“Dan! Here boy . . . Here boy.” I scurried underneath the little table that held my grandma’s ceramic birds nesting on doilies.

“Dianne. My name is Dana. I am not a boy.” I thought I said it with authority – despite the fact that I was cowering under the table. Dianne got on her knees and patted my head.

“Good Dan. You a girl.” Progress was so sweet. A couple years down the road, she even got a hang of calling me Dana.

***

When Dianne was born, the doctors told my grandparents that she wouldn’t make it to be a teenager, but Dianne didn’t have a habit of listening to anyone. She lived to be 35. Not long after her 35th birthday, Dianne’s health began to deteriorate. It’s common for people with Down syndrome to have heart defects ranging from mild to severe. Dianne’s were severe. The doctors called it an Atrioventricular Septal Defect. To put it simply, she had a hole in her heart. Dianne’s condition became too strenuous for the staff at the Village, so she we moved her to a nursing home for the last six months of her life. The move from her family at the Village was devastating for both Dianne and the others that lived there. The staff members went without as many hugs. Someone else had to say the prayer at supper every night. Her squeals and serenades no longer echoed through the hallways, and Steve watched Vanna by himself each night.

Debbie, the staff member, grabbed my elbow before I walked through the cottage doors with the last box full of stuffed animals, her eyes shining with tears. She pulled me into a hug and whispered in my ear.

“Dianne brings so much joy. That’s why she has a hole in her heart. It can’t hold all the love.”

***

“Shhh…Ruthie Ann sleeping.” Dianne held her finger to her lips and pointed to the opposite end of her room that was separated by a navy curtain. This was her third month at the nursing home, and my family and I came to visit at least three times a week.

“I’m not sleeping any more Dianne,” grumbled Ruth Ann. The curtain leapt to the side, revealing a petite frame in a wheelchair. Her head was donned by a pink bonnet protecting the rollers in her hair. We must have just missed her daughter Suzanne who came to curl her mother’s hair every week.

“You know she’s been playing the damn animal movie all day. I’m tired of it.”

“I’m sorry Ruth Ann,” said my father. “But that’s how Dianne likes to pass her time here. She gets bored.”

“Hmmph. Well you try listening to singing cows all day.” I covered my mouth with my hand to trap a giggle. Too late. Ruth Ann noticed. “So you think that’s funny?” Dianne came to my rescue. She looked confused.

“Ruth Ann watch it with me.” My father chuckled.

“You watch it Ruth Ann?”

“Now don’t go thinking that I ask for it.” She wagged her finger at us. “Dianne asks me to watch it with her. Have you tried saying no to your sister? Besides I might as well since I know all the damn songs.” That confession was enough for Ruth Ann. “Now hush up. I’m trying to sleep.” She yanked the curtain shut. Dianne shrugged her shoulders.

“Sometimes Ruthie Ann grumpy. But we friends.”

***

I took my place by the casket behind my brother and grabbed the handle. My siblings and I carried her down the aisle. The pews were full of Dianne’s family. Some by blood, some not, but all by love because Dianne didn’t treat anybody as less. I tried to listen to the various speakers and join in with the hymns, but all I could think of was Dianne sitting in the floral recliner. Her pink crocs. Ooooo doggie. The magazine clippings. Vanna. A crinkle French fry. Pink nail polish. Coke. Here boy.

“Let’s bow our heads in prayer.” All swirling, spinning, blurring. Hot sparkles streaming. I peeked over at my grandma, dabbing her eyes with her white cotton handkerchief.

“In Jesus’ name. Amen.” I kept my head bowed. A moment of clarity. Focus. The prayer wasn’t over. Dianne would have had nothing to do with that sort of ending.

“God bless the combine.”