Cannot Wait to Get to Heaven - Fannie Flagg [2]
After Macky hung up, Norma ran into the living room like he had said to do, but she certainly could not calm down or even sit down until he called to tell her everything was all right. “I swear to God,” she thought, “if she hasn’t killed herself this time, not only am I taking that ladder away from her, I’m going over and personally chopping down that damn fig tree, once and for all.” As she paced up and down the living room, wringing her hands, she suddenly remembered she should be practicing the positive self-talk exercises she had just learned in a program she was doing, designed to help people, like herself, who suffered from panic attacks and anxiety. Her daughter, Linda, had seen it advertised on TV and had sent it to her for her birthday. She had finished step nine, “Put an End to ‘What If’ Thinking,” and was now on step ten, “How to Stop Obsessive, Scary Thoughts.” She also tried to do her biofeedback deep breathing technique that she had been learning from a woman in her yoga class. As she paced, she breathed deeply and repeated a list of positive affirmations to herself: “It’s nothing to worry about,” “She has fallen out of the tree twice before and it has always been all right,” “She’s going to be fine,” “It’s just catastrophic thinking, it is not real,” “You will laugh about this later,” “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” “Ninety-nine percent of the things you worry about never happen,” “You are not having a heart attack,” “It’s just anxiety, it’s not going to hurt you.”
But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t help but be anxious. Aunt Elner was the closest living relative she had left in the world, besides Macky and their daughter, Linda, of course. After her own mother had died, her aunt’s well-being had become the main focus of most of her worries, and it had not been easy. As she passed by the photograph of a smiling Aunt Elner she kept on the mantel, she sighed. Who would have thought that this sweet, innocent-looking, rosy-cheeked old lady, with her white hair pulled back in a bun, could cause so much trouble? But then, Aunt Elner had always been stubborn; years ago when Aunt Elner’s husband, Uncle Will, had died, it had taken Norma forever to get her to move into town so she could keep a better eye on her.
Finally, after years of begging her, Aunt Elner had agreed to sell the farm and move into a small house in town, but she still was hard to handle. Norma dearly loved Aunt Elner, and hated to have to nag at her all the time, but she was forced to; Aunt Elner was deaf as a post and would not have gotten a hearing aid if Norma hadn’t nagged at her. Aunt Elner never locked her doors, she didn’t eat right, she would not go to the doctor, and worst of all, she wouldn’t let Norma straighten up her house for her, something Norma was just dying to do. Aunt Elner’s house was a disaster, with pictures hung all over the wall helter-skelter, in no particular order, and her front porch was a mess. She had all kinds of things strewn everywhere: rocks, pinecones, shells, birds’ nests, wooden chickens, old plants, and four or five old rusty metal bulldog doorstoppers that her neighbor Ruby Robinson had given her. It was appalling to Norma, whose house and porch were always kept as neat as a pin. And it was only getting worse; just yesterday when Norma had gone over, there had been yet another new addition to the clutter: a hideously ugly jar of plastic sunflowers. Norma had cringed when she first saw it, but had asked sweetly, “Where did these come from, honey?”
As if she didn’t know. It was Aunt Elner’s neighbor across the street, Merle Wheeler, who was always bringing over the most horrendous-looking objects. Merle was the one who had brought that ratty, old fake brown leather office chair with the wheels, a chair that Elner had put on the front porch for all the world to see. At the time Norma had been head of the Beautify