Last Updated on Tuesday, 5 January 2010 08:02
Written by Melinda
Monday, April 9th, 2007
I finally took a trip to Illinois, where my mother’s family lives. I have been putting it off for some time as I wanted to lose as much weight as possible. But I thought Easter would be a good time, especially since my mother was off this past week for Spring Break. The day before we left, we received word that my uncle had passed away and there was a visitation/funeral to attend. Afterwards, the entire family got together at another aunt’s house for a “reunion” if you call it that. Its such a shame that we have not all come together since the last funeral, which was six years ago.
I remember my childhood days when our family got together for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the occasional picnic at the state park. I miss those days. Anyway, my aunt Shirley is homebound and she said, “You’ve lost a lot of weight! How did you do THAT?” I reminded her of surgery… my uncle Bill is almost homebound due to age and health issues. He didn’t recognize two people, and told my mother the next day that he finally figured out who I was by studying me… the high cheek bones gave it away as I look so much like my mother… (and she NEVER lets me forget it… after all, people usually say, “You look so pretty… you look like your mother.”)
The people who noticed the most were people from my aunt’s church. They have only known me as obese… never small like my mother’s family. One guy walked passed, and when I said, “Hello stranger” he turned his head and did a double take. He did not know me! One lady just kept saying, “My goodness how did you lose all the weight?” And even after I told her, she just shook her head, and said, “I can’t believe how much weight you’ve lost.”
My crazy aunt Helen was the funniest. She is NEVER speechless. When she came over to the aunt/uncles’ house where I was staying, I came out of the living room. She looked in my face, and just stood there silent for a minute, then her eyes went down to my toes, then up to my head again… she was stunned. She told me later that I looked great, and the reason she didn’t say anything is because she was jealous (she wasn’t really… she is just a hoot… I love her even if she is psycho!)
My other favorite aunt Val actually tasted my protein shake, and liked it! I had taken a bunch of baggies labeled with the protein powder that I put in them, and took my Magic Bullet along also… she loved the bullet… and said if I had left it, she would definitely put it to good use! haha… but I let her taste Vanilla Elite that I had put some cranberry/rasberry Fuze in. It somewhat tasted like a float.
My uncle (Donnie) and mother (Donna) are twins. His daughter looks so much like me. I saw a picture of her last year after she lost a lot of weight (although she has never been overweight…). I wondered, “Will I look like her when I am small?” I secretly hoped so, cause she was pretty!My relatives still say how much we look alike. She is 130 lbs, in a size 5/6. 130 is how much I want to weigh, and I got excited that maybe I can be her size once I get rid of 20 more pounds. Do you know that not one single person told me to stop losing weight… that I was too skinny…or tried to look over my shoulder and tell me what to eat, what not to eat… afraid I would become anorexic. It was so nice to not hear any of that garbage that I hear at work all the time.
My favorite person to see was the lady at church who was always mean to me. Not just me. She’s mean to everyone. Our eyes locked as she was walking into the sanctuary. But she avoided me like the plague. She sat in the pew ahead of me, but across the aisle. Then later when I said, “Hello stranger” to her brother in law, the one who didn’t recognize me, she immediately turned to look at me (ole nosy) and hollered over “Hey skinny! How did you lose all that weight?” I told her, “Medical intervention.” After all, I was in the Lord’s house… I couldn’t lie! And, I figured if Star Jones could use that line, then so could I! She even came over and hugged me and said how nice I looked. Now I can’t swear to what word she technically used… nice, great, well but hey, I will take anything! I’m sure it gave her plenty to talk about later… but I didn’t care. Nothing she can say would steal my 102 lb weight loss. No one can take that away from me. Overall it was a good trip but I am glad to be back home in Tennessee.
