One Day, One Lifetime Written about my Grandmother Emmie

She was to me a beautiful and mysterious woman, although I never knew her.
I have always felt her spirit alive within me.
Emmy’s hair was jet black and her ringlets fell past her ears halfway to her smooth, white shoulders. Her dark brown eyes exuded kindness and humility.

She was only twenty-six when she died, leaving her husband and little son to go on without her. That little boy is my father. Through the years I saw pictures of her and listened to my father reminisce about his mother, recalling the memories that only he had shared. I would always get a yearning in my soul to sit with her and touch her beautiful face and hear her sweet voice as she read to me. She was my grandmother, who left this world way too young and without knowing me, her oldest granddaughter.

One day could never be enough time to discern the meaning of her existence and what it would bring to my life. Yet, if there could be one day, maybe a full twenty-four hours, I would take her hand in mine and walk with her through the memories of her own short life. I would ask her to sit at her graveside with me and tell me of her childhood, her life with my grandfather and about her son, my father.

I remember the stories of how she died. She had gangrene, and in those days there was not much that could be done. I would ask her how it felt to die in the arms of the man she loved. I would listen to her voice as she told me of the love for her six- year- old son and how desperately she wanted to live for him. Her voice, a sound I have never heard, would be filled with emotions that only she could know and that I desperately need to embrace.

Maybe we would stroll down the dirt road she lived on as a young girl and talk about her childhood. As she talked, I would picture her sitting at her mother’s sewing machine making simple dresses fashioned in the time she lived. Those times were tough and the family was very poor, and the desperation of her life would be on her face.

Then I would show her the postcard that she had written to my grandfather in 1936 while she was in California and he and my father were still home in Louisiana. The circumstances of her trip were very sad. Yet, I would ask her anyway because the postcard was written while she was sitting with her sister-in-law who was dying. The postcard was written in pencil and was addressed with only the town and state on it. She told my grandfather to kiss A.J. and that she would be home soon. She died six months later.

Before the day was over, I would sit close to her with my head on her breast, as a child does. I would breathe in the smell of her skin and save it in my memory to last forever more. I would tell her how much I missed her while I was growing up. I missed the hugs and kisses that are only meant for a grandmother. That I needed her as my father needed her. I would show her pictures of her son as he grew to be a man. While I was telling her how proud she would be of him through all the tough times of growing up and moving from one place to another, I would see her wipe tears from her eyes. Tears of sorrow for a life cut short and a journey never taken. Then, I would show her what a handsome man her son turned out to be. She would smile when she saw the pictures of his accomplishments, being dressed out in his football uniform in high school and later in life, his own family.

As the day ended I would ask her “What would I have called you? Is there anything you want me to say to your son? Would you like me to hold his face in my hands and kiss him once more from you?”

Then as we parted, never to come together again, I would wrap my arms around her and hold her like I never got the chance growing up. I would hold her for my grandfather, my father and myself.

One day, one lifetime, gone forever, never to be forgotten.



By Debbie Aycock Williams 2007
 
copyright 2007