She knew I was coming so she put on her red dress and painted her lips and darkened her eyebrows.
I pulled the crumbling wicker chair close to her. "I used to keep that chair on my front porch with the table that is in the bathroom," she said. And the memories, told in her precise, midwestern, school teacher voice, began to flow, like a slow pleasant stream. It was as if she reached out her hand and we walked together along that stream, two people from different centuries and much different backgrounds. She was born in a small Ohio town in a large farmhouse to a well-respected family, close friends with a future President. I was born in a small Alabama town, in a two-roomed house on a hill surrounded by kinfolks where someone once said, only boot-leggers, whores and poor people lived.
It seems we met by chance but I think it was by God's grace, a blessing, a prayer for a friend, answered.
I was hired to care for her while her daughter worked. As we passed the days in the cramped, one room apartment, through the routine of breakfast, lunch, bathtime, naptime and supper she opened up a window on the past and let me look through, down a long, long road that led to the big farmhouse and her first memories. The sound of her brother's buggy wheels on the dirt road as they raced home late on a Saturday night. The pet billy goat who pulled their little wagon around the farm. And the sound of the neighbor's feet tramping past her Papa's coffin in the front room downstairs.
How strange, yet so wonderful it was, our friendship. Two people from such different backgrounds and such a wide space of years, sitting side by side, laughing and crying together, agreeing on so many things.
She was in her last years, her hair gone from jet black to white, her skin from smooth white satin to yellowed crepe. Her spine, once so straight and proud was weak and bent, needing help from a walker to hold her upright.
" I never wanted to live this long."she said.
But I'm glad she did. I thank God that our paths crossed. I felt privileged and blessed to have her for my friend.
In memory of Susan Gaberson Byrd
1896-1994
Denver, Colorado
2 comments:
I'm Tess and I want to thank you for the visit to my journal and the comment on mine, so thank you and I'm glad that you enjoyed. To answer your question, I live in southeast Louisiana.
But, I do whish to say that yours is a treasure. Your beautiful pictures capture the essence of your writings. I have truly enjoyed the stories and memories that you have shared here as only another southerner may. I will be back to visit.
Thank you for the watery glaze in my eyes and the tingle on my spine. This was a joyful experience.
Wonderful remembrance. - Barbara
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