Losses and Memories
A few weeks ago, my Aunt Grace passed away. I’m at an age when many of my older relatives are beginning to leave this plane and move to the Next Great Thing. I know it will happen more and more as I age. And I know I could easily let myself be pulled down into dark thoughts of my own mortality, but I won’t. Instead, I will celebrate my memories of her.
My memories see her as a stoic, hard-working, patient woman. She had a lot of kids (9 that survived, one set of twins), so patience was required. Being a farm woman, she spent her days fixing meals, growing and preserving food for the winter months, laundry, keeping the kids on their chores, and doing more than her fair share by herself. I thought the ringer-washer she had was pure magic. I’m sure she thought it was a time-saver, but horrifying nonetheless. I have great memories of the food – bread baked in coffee cans (so it was beautifully round), homemade ice cream in the freezer, jars of plump, sweet peaches over slices of yellow cake. There was homemade butter, and cream floated on top of our glasses of milk in the morning. There was bacon and eggs in the morning, and something called “panas,” which was a sort of polenta but made with pork broth and fried in bacon fat.
Of course, my memories are mostly about the times we were there as a family, visiting for a weekend. They lived about 2 hours from us, and we visited at least once a month, and often there would be a week we would spend there as a family. There were so many kids; how anyone kept track of anything at all is a miracle. We kids would be in and out of the house, snagging snacks, leaving mud trails, and then disappearing back out into the fresh air. We would ride the ponies they had, help gather eggs, wrinkle our noses while walking with our cousins along the fence where the pigs were. There were fields of green (some grazing land, some growing alfalfa for baling), there were dairy cows and beef cattle, and huge chicken houses full of pullets being raised for meat. The farm was most definitely a working farm, and I rode more than one tractor-fender in my times there. I was there when there was butchering (beef, swine, chicken, and the occasional deer), I was there when it was time to peel the horseradish (you did it under water or you would die of tears), I was there when peaches and tomatoes and green beans were canned. I was there when my uncle would drag out the giant barbecue pit made from a barrel sawed in half lengthwise. I loved look at my dad and his brother (my uncle) and seeing all the resemblance there. At home, my dad was one of a kind, a rarity, something I never saw anywhere else. Down on the farm, he was one of many. There were others just like him.
My cousins were tall and short, big and small, ranged in age from grown to preschool, and were mostly boys. My aunt certainly had her hands full, even when we weren’t there.
Which is where the patience came in. And that is how I will remember her. If she ever lost her temper, I never saw it. If she was ever tired, I never saw it. If she was ever hurting, I never saw it. Many of us could learn from her example. Not that her life was perfect, as I’m sure it wasn’t. Were her needs met? Did she feel that she got to be her own person, despite the kids and hard work of a farm wife? I feel myself chafe against my responsibilities as a wife and mother all the time, and I know I express it, sometimes in not-so-healthy ways. I do not have her patience, although I mostly have that hard work thing down. There are things about her life I know would fit me well – the cooking and baking and working in the garden. But there are things that wouldn’t fit me well. I would not be the person I am without a job, without having the freedom to come and go as I wanted, to make decisions that are selfish and all about me.
But my Aunt Grace lived up to her name, and I am the better for having known her. She leaves behind children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, as well as her husband. She is certainly being missed among all of us. And none of us could ever expect to fill her shoes, or carry ourselves with the patience that she did.
