My Aunt Trudy: A Classy, Sassy Leader

My Aunt Trudy was my role model when I was a teen. She was thin, classy, and beautiful with a silky, immaculately kept hairdo, and bright red lipstick. She drove the longest and widest Cadillac! I think it was a DeVille, but don’t really know or recall. I always sat in the backseat of her car which was way back, requiring me to shout to be heard. Her car was so big that when she turned a corner, I slid from side to side. If she turned right, I slid right. If she turned left, I slid left. It was like being on a rollercoaster ride with nothing to hold onto and no brakes. She smoked a long cigarette, fitted into a slender pipe-like holder, and held by long fingers with nails painted the same color as her lipstick. She wore Chanel No.5 perfume and flattering pencil skirts, and she always smelled very feminine and looked very sexy. She had a husky voice, mostly due to the smoking, and her laughter was contagious. She found most things laughable, and as she drove me and my grandmother around on Saturdays, she laughed a lot! I was never sure what was so funny because I could not hear a word of what was being said. I was too busy sliding from side to side, and there was a gulf of space between the front seats and the back seats. One time, we went to the cemetery to put flowers on my Uncle Robert’s gravesite—Aunt Trudy’s deceased husband who was killed in a car accident. We got stuck in the mud, and the Caddy’s tires just kept spinning and spinning and getting deeper and deeper in the mud. Of course, I was the one expected to get out and find help. Aunt Trudy had on her usual cute sling-back shoes, and my grandmother simply refused to get out because she had warned my aunt not to drive in the area where we were now stuck. I had on Keds. I didn’t have to go far, and the two men I asked for help willingly came to the rescue. They easily pushed us out of the hole we were dug in, and Aunt Trudy offered them a few dollars. They refused, stating that they were happy to help the ‘prettiest woman’ they had ever seen in their lives. I felt my uncle roll over in his grave while my grandmother simply rolled her eyes. My aunt turned to my grandmother and said, “Marie, we need to go because these men got their eyes on your granddaughter!” She threw her head back, opened her mouth, and laughed out loud, then she gunned it! And, for the first time ever, I flew forward! Leadership is like that! Just when you think you are rolling along, there is a hole you fall into, or you end up on a rollercoaster going up and down, or side to side. Sometimes you get stuck in muddy situations and spin and spin until you realize you are getting nowhere, and have to ask for help. Sometimes you have to roll your eyes and put up with stubborn behavior. Sometimes you have to realize that a certain job is not for you; it’s for somebody else to do, so you delegate. Sometimes you have to use your husky voice to get results. Sometimes you have to do things for free. Despite it all, you must learn to laugh out loud, and shoot forward!