This cousin grows up just fine

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

I named her, so I guess it's okay for me to brag a little. She slept in my room when she was born and she lived in my house and I walked her around the block, countless times, pretending she was mine or part mine.

And for a while she was.

I wished on every star for her, blew dandelion seeds all over the lawn, used all my birthday wishes and all my new church wishes (you get three when you visit a church for the first time) and every wishbone from every turkey my mother ever cooked.

I was 8 and an only child wishing for a sister or a brother. When my cousin Darlene came along, it seemed, in a way, that I had gotten my wish.

"It isn't the same," my best friend Rosemary said, warning me, I suppose, that one day my aunt and uncle would move out of our house, taking Darlene with them.

But I never believed in that day. Tip-toeing into what used to be my room, peering into the crib, looking at her, holding her, I was sure she was mine.

I had been watching the Mickey Mouse Club the day I named her. My aunt and mother were at kitchen table, drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and talking about babies' names. If it were a boy, Lorraine said, she would name him, Frank Maurice Powers Jr. And if it were a girl? She shrugged, saying she didn't know.

My mother said, "How about Dorothy Marie?"

Lorraine shook her head and said, "I don't think so, Dot."

"What's your favorite girl's name?" my aunt asked me. I said, "Darlene" because Darlene Gillespie was my favorite Mousketeer.

"Darlene? Darlene Marie. I think I like it," my aunt said.

I loved Darlene from the moment I saw her, in my aunt's arms, then in my mother's, then in mine. We shared her for a while. I got to feed her and change her and walk her around the block, until the day my aunt and uncle packed up the crib and wrapped her up and took her away. I cried that day. My mother cried, too.

Lorraine said, "I'm not going to the moon, you know. I'll be just a few towns away." But it may as well have been the moon. My mother and aunt didn't drive and even if they had, what would they have driven? Their husbands had the cars.

After they moved, I saw Darlene only on visits and though I still got to hold her and walk her, it wasn't the same as when she lived with us. Rose was right. She wasn't my sister, after all.

And yet, how to explain the special bond we have? I call her up and say, "How's my favorite cousin?" and she says, "How's mine?" It's banter because she has other cousins she loves, and she has sisters I love, but there is between us a little more.

And so I'm bragging a little today because I can - because I named her, and because today the Cranberry Country Chamber of Commerce is giving her another name: Businesswoman of the Year.

This is an honor not just because it's the first time the chamber, which serves businesses in Middleboro, Lakeville and Rochester, has recognized a woman as its best business person, but because the chamber has recognized this woman.

Her skill is arranging flowers and decorating with balloons. But her real gift is knowing people - knowing what those who call her or walk into her business want.

Every child who enters her shop gets a free balloon. Every organization which has ever knocked on her door walks away satisfied. Everyone who knows her has nothing but good words to say about her.

I always knew she was something special. Now her whole community knows.