Historical Setting, 629 C.E. farm in the Vosges Mts.
The blade was put to Ana’s breast and nothing good came of it. But at least we know the shape of our desperate prayers. She’s been resting and is easily healing from that little wound by the blade now. None of us who loves her will heal easily from this grief in knowing what is to come. She will die a slow and painful death. We speak of it as a long good-bye. The long part is a goodness for those of us who love her. The death is the universal nature of each mortal being of Creation. Let it be our blessed failing not to look for endings.
Family is knocking at our door, not just walking in as usual. Do they think we are newlyweds and they might catch us intimate? They do catch us intimate, but not in that way. I’m glad for the warning to rinse away my tears before I open the door.
Haberd has a pot of supper for us, hot and wafting delicious. I carry it to the cold hearthstone, that we may dip bowls from it.
He explains, “Hannah said you would want this, so the women prepared extra from our supper, for you.”
“Tell them we are grateful. Can you stay and have this with us?”
I prepare the bowls. Haberd is trying not to look at his mother in bed. She speaks to him, “Tell Hannah and your wife that this is lovely and we appreciate it. Please stay and share it with us.”
“No, I can’t stay. Ann came down with me and she’s waiting outside. She really wants to see her grandmama but I told her not to bother you at this time.”
“Bother me?” Ana turns herself toward the door and I adjust her pillows. “Have Ann come in and eat with us also.”
I tidy the room to assure the child will see nothing of blades or needles to pierce her remembrances of her grandmother, while Haberd takes a few minutes outside with her before she is welcomed in. I’m sure he is warning the child that her grandmama is pale and suffering, so little Ann won’t be frightened by the sight of her.
Now, in come Ann and Haberd.
“Grandmama! You are so beautiful! I thought you would be different now, but you are just the same, and so beautiful!” [personal note]
Children see things.
A personal message to my Munro cousins: In an ancient time, when I was four years old going on five, I have a vague recollection, reinforced by stories told, that at the time our own grandmother was suffering from a painful cancer I was allowed a brief visit to her bedside. I expected to see the horror everyone spoke of, but instead, I saw my same grandmother there, radiant and beautiful, smiling, and receiving me lovingly. I told her she was beautiful. The parents and uncle and aunts said “I lied tactfully at the right time.” But really, I spoke the truth and I spoke for all of us who continue to know her in spirit even to this day even though she is long gone from earth.
(Continues Tuesday, September 3, 2024)
#long good-bye, #death, #intimate moments, #beauty of life, #grief, #grandmother,
Lazarus Ink 
Julie, I also remember her since we lived in the same house. She would bang on a pan when she wanted something, could not talk or hold food in her mouth. I remember being told that she had a hole in her chin. I wish I could remember what she was like before all that but there are just one or two brief snippets of memory before that. I am glad you have that good memory.
Sandy
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Sandy, I thought you would remember more of the actual time we all had of it. My brief visit with her was so orchestrated.
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Yes, and it must have been right after we moved in with them, so she was not so terribly ill. I went to nursery school, kindergarten and first grade from that house.
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Oh, that was in Fort Worth? Putting pieces together after 75+ years maybe it is only the good and the beautiful images that stay in our remembrances. I mean, you figure it had only been four years since I had been not yet born, busy collecting all those baby memories of heartbeat and mother’s voice, a time when I had no concept of earthly life at all, So I wouldn’t know a distorted grandmother from a lovely one, but you had already been walking and talking as a fully human person for several years more than I. You already had a higher bar set for beauty.
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I believe we moved to FW to live with Grandma and Grandpa because we had no other place to go and he needed mother’s help, from your home in Lockport. Do you remember much from when we stayed with you in Lockport? I have some pictures. I remember that I had a bad habit of biting and got in trouble for that, often. I was 4 when we moved, and not happy about much of anything – but there was a piano there. I was not a very nice little girl and very shy.
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Again, I only remember the good things: Your excellent speaking ability, your wonderful stuffty Dumbo, and rubber baby BeeBee, your mother playing the violin for hours in the empty rooms upstairs. We slept on the screen porch with the 17 year locust singing in the tree, and the trucks barreling down the hill all night just outside the house and you were never afraid. When you left, I still had a little brother to contend with and you took those two really wonderful toys. I guess I missed you then, If I was old enough to miss.
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I remember Dumbo of course. I remember your birthday when your mom made a carousel of stuffed horses that she made herself and yours was bigger, and I think they went around the birthday cake.
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