Cognitive_Shift:
I've written a story for you. This is for you. It's consumed considerable time and effort. This is not a demand that you appreciate it; it is an invitation that you enjoy it, as that's why I wrote it. Please, do enjoy it.
More than a century ago, there lived an old woman, living alone in a small wooden house on the countryside. She was lonely, sad, and having no one left in her life to talk to, she frequently muttered to herself about how many things which were one way really should be the other way around. "Youth is wasted on the young", she'd say to the empty living room, "you're not mature enough to appreciate life until you're too old to do anything about it. That should be the other way around." No was listening to her, but she muttered anyway. Somehow it helped her feel a little better.
She had three children. Every year, her birthday would go by, marking another year that she hadn't seen them. All three had gotten on with their lives, and had families of their own now. She'd receive two dutiful letters a year from each of them, all of which were pithy and empty, saying very little other than to ask if she needed money or anything else. Each time, she'd write back, saying "I'm an old woman. It's a blessing to be able to walk. What could I possibly need but you? Won't you visit?" Another year, another birthday, another six letters. Each summer, her flower bed would grow a little smaller, her garden more sparse, as slowly she lost interest in everything that once made her happy.
It had been fifteen years since she'd seen her three children. Last time they were all together was when her sister Nancy fell suddenly ill and died. Everyone came to the wake. They came from all over the countryside. She had seen her grandchildren then, all of whom were well on their way to being grown adults by now. "Nobody visits you when you're still alive," she muttered to herself. "They pay more honour to your ghost than they do to your flesh and blood."
"That should be the other way around."
It was her 80th birthday.
Realizing that she meant more to her three children below the ground than she does above it was a terrifying climax of despair for this old woman. She laid awake that night with her eyes pinned open, their whites the only moons in her cloud-obscured window. She lay there like a bag of dry bones, wondering why she should bother staying alive at all, her face like a sudden, despondent statue. The turbulence inside her was matched by the turbulence outside her prairie home: a dry, windy, rainless storm had wedged itself in the valley, its fury dragging twigs, sticks, and pine cones across her weathered roof. Sprays of dust were thrown against the exterior walls, as unidentifiable claps and bangs jolted through the night. At half past three in the morning, the bulk of the storm's ferocity suddenly blustered itself out, and there descended an erie, menacing black silence, a monolith of doom. Its chill chased the moisture from the air.
By six a.m., the first glints of sun touched her paper skin. She did not move.
One month later, on the other side of the land, three letters were received in three mailboxes, exceptionally well-penned and official in their appearance, postmarked the first of June.
It is with great regret that this office of the Parish informs you, the next of kin, that Angela Cohen Pierce, has been found deceased in her home. It is assumed she passed peacefully in her sleep approximately two weeks prior to the time of this writing. In your absence, burial arrangements have been made and will proceed in accordance with local custom. Should you wish to attend a wake for the deceased, a small formal service will be held on the date of June 26, 1883 at the community hall. You and your families are invited to attend.
Signed,
Angus Piermont
The Office of the Parish
June 26, 1883.
The first of three families had arrived at the prairie community hall, which stood at the centre of a dusty, almost invisible road that stretched to the horizon in two directions. A small, framed, grey photograph of Angela Cohen Pierce stood atop a simple round table at the centre of the room, behind a folded card which read, in calligraphy: "1803-1883". The floor groaned in protest as the first solemn, sober faces stepped through. Christopher Pierce, his wife Sarah-Joy, and his two children, Andrew and Margaret, stood together in silence, their mother's absence felt as surely as the dryness of the summer air.
"Christopher," came a voice behind them. "And Sarah-Joy."
They turned. "Laura. It is so good to see you again. And your husband, of course, Charles. And Aaron: a fine young man you've become haven't you?" Laura smiled shakily, while Charles stood firm, like a post, his nod of acknowledgement a dam for his own grief as well as that of his wife."
The two families were joined a half-hour later by Angela's second daughter, Edith, her husband Kenneth, and her two daughters. Between them, some six thousand miles had been traversed. In time, stiff acknowledgements of grief became stories of fondness, memories of childhood, of growing up, of the war, and of all the times their mother scolded them for not wiping their feet or for giggling in church.
"We really owe who we are to her," said Christopher. "At the time we may not have understood it, but she took care of us. She raised us to be the people we are today. And look, now we all have families of our own. All thanks to this incredible woman, our mother."
"It's just such a shame that it takes a time of sadness like this to bring us all together," said Laura, her comment drawing a hollow, guilty silence into the room which seemed to swirl around their now uncomfortably ankles. Her words hung in the air like the peal of a bell.
"Amen to that!" Came a vibrant, fully-alive voice. "By the Lord's mercy, look what it takes!"
"Mother?" "Mother?!"
Edith let out a shriek. Charles scribbled himself around on his heels, startled by the sudden commotion. There, at the threshold, stood a ghost; the ghost of Angela Cohen Pierce. Except, it wasn't a ghost. She was flesh and blood.
"For fifteen years I sat alone in that house waiting to see one of you again. Not since Nancy fell down dead did didja do much more than write me a darned page-and-a-half. You didn't think to come 'round this way 'til you heard from Angus Piermont, a darned figment of my imagined creation!"
In that moment, that small prairie town had become town of "Aghast", population: 11, est.: 1883.
"Mother, how did you, how could you, what right did you--?"
"Rights? You want to talk about the rights you have, Edith? Well, what about my right to see my three children, my right to feel like I so much as exist to the people I brought into this world. Sure, I lied to you. All of you. I spent weeks at my table learnin' to forge the letters you each got; don't be thinkin' I didn't know I was lyin' to ya. But it's a lie that's got us all to the darn truth, hasn't it? A great big fraud, a hoax, but it ain't perpetrated nothin' but showing the truth hasn't it? The truth that we all love each other, that we should be spending more time together--" Angela's fervour was giving way to a cry that had been welling up within her for a decade and a half--"as a family, instead of being so absorbed--so darned absorbed--in our own personal business."
Angela summoned the last of her composure to emphasize it unsparingly: "Let me tell you, a lie isn't a lie at all if it be wearin' the clothes of the naked truth!"
"Oh, mom," Came a crumbling voice. "Mom, I'm so sorry." Laura's tears started first, followed by Edith's. Even Charles' eyes were a touch flooded.
"Mother, it's just--well a man's work seems so important, and-- well, there's no use in making excuses. I'm sorry. We're all sorry."
"It's all right Christopher. Just come hug your mother."
Andrew, Margaret, and the rest of Angela's grandchildren were standing together as their parents shared what became one enormous hug. They were stunned speechless by the scene that had just unfolded before them. It was Andrew who finally cracked up.
"You faked this? Grandma?!"
It was the first laughter in what had been an otherwise sober, grim afternoon, and it quickly spread to the others. It was a laughter which signalled the end of a fifteen year night, and the dawn of a fifteen year day.
Angela Cohen Pierce died in 1898, aged 95, having enjoyed fifteen more birthdays with her family. She had forgiven them easily, of course, for if she were actually begrudged she would not have performed the elaborate stunt in the first place. Her grandson Aaron, Laura's son, grew up to be a minister. It was this story that became Aaron's favourite to tell to his congregations, where he posed the question: if the consequence of sin is virtue, is it really sin? If a lie tells the truth, is it really a lie at all? If the act of selfishness leads to the end of selfishness, who but God is there to judge?"
June 26th, 1901.
Angela Cohen Pierce's gravestone was covered in flowers. Her entire family had made a tradition of gathering on that date, to honour their mother's deed, and had carried that tradition on into the new century. Tucked between two stems was a folded note.
Mother,
In the three years since your passing, my gratitude for what you've done has never waned. For fifteen years I had lost sight of everything, of what really mattered in life. It wasn't only you I neglected, but Sarah-Joy, Andrew, Margaret, Laura, Edith, and their families too. I had become so totally consumed by providing for my own, in becoming successful at affording my own a quality of life in which we wanted for nothing, that I forgot about the very thing which makes the effort worthwhile: each other.
On this day in 1883, mother, your angel broke that spell. Your grand, seraphic prank: it lifted the veil not just from my eyes, but from all our eyes. I'm sorry you spent so many years alone. I'm sorry you suffered so much. But I'm happy for what grew out of it: these past fifteen years of Christmas dinners, thanksgiving turkeys, birthdays, and anniversaries. I'm happy for the family we've become, that we've again realized the family we always were.
For fifteen years it felt like you weren't here even though you were still with us. Even though I miss you, I'm happy that this now the other way around. Our family is thriving meaningfully because of you, and so in a way, your spirit thrives on in each of us. Aaron says that's the meaning of heaven. If he's right, I'm glad you showed us the map on your way there.
I love you, mother.
Christopher June 26th, 1901
Edited by Ped (01/01/13 10:47 PM)
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