It's difficult to admit now that I sit here and think about it, I had not thought about her in years. Now she is just a bit of memory brought forward by a chance remark in a conversation. However, she was able to step out of that bit of memory that was hers, as if she was still sitting in the sunroom waiting for me. It had been my routine to spend a month in the summer with my grandmother so she could make my wardrobe for the next school year. Next door lived Mrs. Moses. She though widowed years before but as many of her generation she endured that loss with the hallmark intrepidity that kept them going. She was well into her eighties, however, she kept a little vegetable garden, along with a few flowers; she still cooked and cleaned her home. My grandmother, being the junior of the two, looked in on her and together they would go "up the hill" for ice cream and gossip. Together they would sit on the porch every evening and watch the business of the day pass, as well as comment on the state of young ladies, their lack of decorum. "Susie, don't you think you should put on some clothes?" "I'm fine, Grandma, really. Eyes roll up. "There, that right there, Amy, is why the world is going to Hades in a three handled basket. Mrs. Moses and Grandma would both release long tortured sighs. "I just don't know, Amy, we would never have rolled our eyes at our elders like that. Never." "And if we did, Millie, it would have been the woodshed." I never won one of these exchanges so I would cut my loses as painlessly as possible. "I'm sorry, Grandma and Miss Millie, I didn't mean any disrespect," kissing them both, apologizing once more, and removing my halter-topped, cut-off shorted self before they could throw a quilt over me. These were our summers for a number of years, summers and holidays. Until the fall I came to live with my grandmother to attend college. It was that year Mrs. Moses' children decided she would be better off in a nursing home. This, of course, was for her own good because she would be well taken care of. I could understand, I guess, if she had slipped into dementia often categorized by advanced years or if she was physically impaired but she was as vital and vigorous as ever. My grandmother was furious! She called mother and my uncle making them take what just fell short of a blood oath that they would never cart her off to some home and dump her. After she finished with them, she turned her attentions to me deeming me the only grandchild possessing common sense. "Susie, if you allow anyone to do this to me I promise that I will come back to haunt you and every generation that issues from you." "Yes, ma'am, I would never do that, Grandma, never!" I said with all the love (ok, fear, the woman could probably make good the threat) possible. The added affront was the fact that they did not put her in a facility close to any of the children nor her hometown. After the first Christmas, they never visited again. I made it a habit, albeit a happy one, to stop in and visit Mrs. Moses at least three times a week, depending on my work and social schedules. It was some time in the spring that I noticed the change, so subtle. First, she began to call me "Sissy." Susie, Sissy, it's Texas, they're the same. However, as the earth swung into summer she began to talk to me about people I didn't know, of whom I'd never heard. It wasn't until the midsummer that I realized that she had fallen back in time. I was her older sister; together we relived her teenage years. It was like walking into "The Twilight Zone. She was physically as healthy as always, age had made her a bit frail, but she was capable of performing every activity. The only difference was her surroundings were not the 20th century nursing home but 19th century Evans. We talked of cotillions, "at homes," debutante balls, socials, and boys (some things never change). We walked together as she relived the death of a younger brother to scarlet fever, of baptisms in the river, of marriages, and births. Many times I would giggled, as she admitted purposely showing an ankle or putting rouge on her lips and how old fashioned "our" parents were. Probably the sweetest occurred on my wedding day. She was unable to attend the ceremony. After the official reception was completed we brought the left over cakes, punch, and most of the wedding party to the retirement home. She was the belle of the ball at her Sissys wedding. We danced, we sang, we laughed and at the end she managed to catch the bouquet. She lived in this world for seven more years before she went to join those she loved. I remember at her funeral someone mentioned how tragic her last days were because all she had was faded memories. I smiled because I knew they weren't faded memories, but favored memories. |
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