By a startling coincidence this Memory Gem was selected at random from a generous supply -- there was no particular significance in mind, it was just something that would do. But it was less than half an hour later as I sat here at my desk on routine work that put an end to all that had happened in a life of over 80 years, my husband's mother.
Our family has been singularly free from tragedy, and this, though it is a shock, is not a tragedy; it is just nature. What came between birth and death for this individual was an active and productive life, and she had lived some 20 years longer than any of her immediate family. Of late years her interests had been gradually narrowing, and for a year and a half she had had a full time nurse and was able to do little more than eat and sleep. Tonight she was put to bed as usual, after a day not much different than customary, and after a while just stopped breathing.
In many ways she had unusual good fortune in her life. She had two children, a boy and a girl, and they both lived near enough to see her every day. She had five grandchildren who all grew up here -- I used to think how nice it was that our children had one grandmother to see every day, and one to visit on trips. All the grandchildren are married but one, and she got to attend each wedding. All but Ruth were home at Christmas, and the youngest of the five great-grandchildren, a toddler, 1 year old, was just the right height to stand beside her couch and say, "Da da da" in a very solemn tone, and she was well enough to smile at him without moving her head and say, "Da da da to you!"
Sixty-two years she spent in the same home, all her married life, yet the last few months she kept asking to be taken "home." Whether she was thinking of her childhood home or a home to come no one could tell. She was buried on her 85th birthday.
It is not an easy blow for her 87-year-old husband but he has had a long time to prepare, and he knows the parting will not be long. Just a short time ago at a neighborhood funeral, as we stood outside the church when the casket was carried out, another neighbor, about his age, stepped up to him and said softly, "One more gone. You and I will be among the next," and grandpa answered, "Yes, that's right." They didn't know anyone was listening; there was no tone of fear or worry, just an acceptance of fact and a sort of quiet peace in their tones.
The four grandsons and two old friends were pallbearers.
It is odd, but in my 50-odd years of life this is nearest I have been to an actual scene of death; life had probably been gone a quarter of an hour when we arrived. And another odd fact occurs to me: For my youngest child, Joe, now 21, this will be a year he will never forget. Wtihin a few months he became of age, was best man at a friend's wedding, was pallbearer for his grandmother, and will enter the army.
It is three in the morning. The doctor has gone, and the undertaker. The children and relatives have been notified. Jim has gone to stay at his father's to soften the loneliness of the first night without her, and it is time everyone was abed.
Sleep, and if life was bitter to thee, pardon,
If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live;
And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.Content thee, whosoe'er, whose days are done:
There lies not any troublous things before,
Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more,
For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,
All waters as the shore.
-- Hope.