Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
A Memoir of Going Home
ONE
The Bridegroom Cousin
The year I turned forty-three was the year I realized I should have never taken my Mennonite genes for granted. I’d long assumed that I had been genetically scripted to robust physical health, like my mother, who never even catches a head cold. All of my relatives on her side, the Loewens, enjoy preternaturally good health, unless you count breast cancer and polio. The polio is pretty much a done deal, thanks to Jonas Salk and his talent for globally useful vaccinations. Yet in the days before Jonas Salk, when my mother was a girl, polio crippled her younger brother Abe and also withered the arm of her closest sister Gertrude. Trude bravely went on to raise two kids one-armed, and to name her withered arm Stinky.
_____ Yes, I think "Stinky" is a cute name for a withered arm!
_____ No, I’d prefer to name my withered arm something with a little more dignity, such as Reynaldo.
Although breast cancer also runs in my family, it hasn’t played a significant role. It comes to us late in life, shriveling a tit or ... read full excerpt from: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home ebook
