Bobbie, giving and laughing through the pain

Bobbie Morgan Livingston was my first cousin and one of my few idols.  My father died when I was ten and we moved from Seattle to a small town of 300 in Mississippi. I was an angry, defiant child in every way and when I was upset I ran away. My dad’s family was a lifesaver for my mother and her five unruly children; there was always room at their tables and hearts. In those days it didn’t take much to set me off running down the farm roads trying to reach the woods to escape the pain. Bobbie’s mom, my Aunt Annie Mae, would call to her to “go catch her and bring her back!”

Bobbie and I both were married numerous times, ok, more than two and less than five, which provided endless gossip and speculation at family gatherings. We used to joke that we would put the names and dates of our marriages on the back of our tombstones so that everyone could keep it straight. At the yearly Memorial Service at the family cemetery, we would sit together and we could see distant relatives looking at us from the corner of their eyes and whispering. The questions were always “is she married again?” and “what is she up to now?"”

Bobbie raised her four children almost singlehandedly and I never heard a word of complaint. When her parents, Aunt Annie Mae and Uncle Jim, became increasingly frail in their late 80’s, her brother, Charles, built a beautiful cottage next to her and for the next five years or so, Bobbie cared for them, day in and day out. No visit “home” was complete until I spent time with Bobbie. We spent hours on her patio or on the steps of the  “little house” talking about life, smoking cigarettes. Souls bared, secrets shared. 

During my summer visit of 2015 my cousin, Twila, hosted a get together of our first cousins and I didn’t recognize Bobbie. She had developed Parkinson’s and COPD and was on oxygen, but she still had stories to tell and her laughter rang out over the room. Laughing with tears flowing and jaws aching.

Unlike her parents, the end of her days were spent in a nursing home where she died in May, 2016. Now there is no one to catch me and bring me home.

In memory of Bobbie Morgan Livingston (1945-2016)