The French have a saying, “Je ne regrette rien.” I regret nothing is a very harsh phrase to say. When I look back on past events there aren’t many things I regret. My biggest regret is not saying anything at my Aunt’s memorial. I don’t want to step on anyones toes but only one person spoke that actually spoke truly from the heart and that was my mom. If I could go back I would have written something to share, but I knew how choked up I got at my grandpa’s funeral and was only able to say a few sentences of the eulogy I wrote before I broke down. I thought about reciting the lyrics to a song she always told me about called “I am my own grandpa,” or how she came to Orlando when I was interning at Walt Disney World with my mom and grandma or even how she made me fall in love with the “place beyond sun.”
So this is in a way a eulogy to how Connie Bourland led me to they yellow brick road and “the rainbow highway to be found.” Everyone assumes that anything that happens in a child’s life before the age 10 isn’t an actual memory, but a memory that has been told to you so many times you think you remember it happening. I’d like to clarify I remember this day vividly because of two things it was the first time I’d every been to a Broadway touring show and two it was the first time I’d ever seen The Wizard of Oz live on stage. In the summer of 1997 my mom, sister, my brother (I think) and Aunt Connie went to Starlight Theatre to see The Wizard of Oz. I would have been 6 years old or if it was in late July I would have been 7 years old. I had seen the movie multiple times, so from the time the orchestra started the overture I knew I was going to be blown. To this day I can show you exactly where we sat. I know that, that might not seem as being important, but Aunt Connie was sitting on my left and the rest of my family was to my right and when the Wicked Witch of the West says “The Emerald City is fast as lightening,” she flew from the stage over the crowd and over our seats and then stopped. I know now that the actress flew from the set piece off stage and then they shot a cape and a hat from the proscenium arch on wire over the crowd. When the spotlight went off and the cape was above us Aunt Connie looked at me and whispered to me “someone didn’t do their laundry.”
I remember sitting by Aunt and watching as the tornado lifted Dorothy up in the air (by a wire) and flung her around the stage as she left Kansas and started to go Over the Rainbow. I got to see Dorothy’s sepia world become full of color just like how Aunt Connie lived her life. Traveling to exotic lands beyond the rainbow and coming back to tell the tales. I used to think that maybe my parents had me so Aunt Connie could have a nephew that was so similar to her because she never wanted kids. We’d both rather be somewhere warm in the winter, but not too hot in the summer. We both love to travel and would rather be a princess than be the queen. I remember back in middle school when Opa was sick we were at the hospital my mom was a wreck with the tears and Aunt Connie asked if iI wanted a Coke and as we walked away from my mom she said “Niagra needs some time alone to control the falls.” She had a great a sense of humor and was one of the extended family members I was the closest to.
On the day of my graduation party from high school she showed up early and handed me a gift and told me to open it early because she wanted to know if I liked it. When I opened it, it was a Jim Shore figure of the Wicked Witch of the West. It is one of my favorite Jim Shore figures I own. It takes the description of the Witch from the original book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” and what the Witch looked like in MGM film “The Wizard of Oz.” A year or so ago some friends got drunk and bumped it over and it got broke. They told me they’d buy me a new one and I said it was okay. In reality I wanted to say you can’t buy the meaning behind the statue or the thought behind why it was given to me. You can’t buy how much my Aunt means to me. So I bought some super glue and tried to piece it back together, kind of like how Dorothy pieces together why Glinda sent her on the trip down the yellow brick road instead of sending her home right when the ruby slippers are given to her. It’s one of my favorite movies and now when I watch it I can see a little piece of Aunt Connie in almost every character. Like Glinda, Aunt Connie was always there to help people and like Dorothy, Aunt Connie loved adventure, but “If she ever went looking for her hearts desire, she would never look any further than her own backyard. Because it wasn’t there, she never really lost it to begin with.”
I may never see Oz the same way again but at least I know she’ll “be with me like a handprint on my heart.” I’ll “Always let Constance be my guide.”
And “someday I’ll wake and rub my eyes and in that land beyond the skies, you’ll find me. Somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly, birds fly over the rainbow, why can’t I?”
With much love to you Aunt Connie,
Zach
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