Looking back at my life now, I don’t think in all honesty that I ever learned a more important lesson in my life as I did in the spring of ‘46. I will admit that I have repressed many of the memories of that year in hopes of not having to deal with what happen and bringing back the pains that arose from them into my heart again. 1946 was the year that my life was practically destroyed for me. With the death of my parents and sub sequentially the orphaning of my sister and myself there were many emotions that flowed through me that I knew that I was just too young to understand and deal with also.
I suppose that it would be good now to tell you the reader why I think that this story needs to be told now. A few weeks really before the death of my father my mother passed away. Even though I was young I knew that this destroyed my father to the greatest depths of his heart, and in a way it did the same to myself. My heart was further shattered by the news of my father’s death while he was asleep, the two of us, my sister and I, were also asleep and so did not find out until later that day when a person came into our room in which we shared and told us the news. With tears in my eyes I looked at my sister, I suppose that I suspected her to cry as well, but she did not, I suppose that in a way she had died then as I felt my heart sink lower into my chest cavity. Later that day as I stayed in a corner of the living room there were many individuals that came and grieved over my father’s death, I did not know at first that some of them were individuals that were looking at us as the poor victims. That because we had no choice in this matter that we were the ones to feel sad about, to feel sorry for.
As I said before it was spring and it was the day after everyone entered my father’s home to gawk at his children. I was beside my sister in front of the casket of my fathers, beside the grave for my father was that of my mothers, the dirt was still moist and the wreaths were still in place. We were at William Wheeler Cemetery on the family plot, or so it seemed to me at that moment. As we stood there listening to the eulogy I looked down at my sister; her name was Alice. I had always thought that her name sounded much prettier than mine, Fredrick; my name sounded so harsh upon the tongue as it was spoken whereas hers was just so smooth and beautiful.
My sister wasn’t cry as I thought that she might be, but instead she had her head held high and just listen to the eulogy being read. I suppose that she had cried all of the tears that she might have had in private. I remember the funeral, I only cried two tears and that was all that I could give him.
I remember the family plot, there beside it was a large English oak, it was, the family plot, set atop a large hill over looking the rest of the cemetery. The grass never died atop that hill, well not to my knowledge it didn’t. It seemed that the grave atop that hill were not really buried in the ground but in the sky.
After the gravediggers began to fill the hole we were taken back to our house to begin packing our things. From what I heard my sister and myself were suppose to go stay at my mother’s sister’s house, but this did not turn out the way she said it. At first I though naturally I was much too young for this. We entered our house and made our way to the back bedroom in which my sister and myself called our room and began to pack. I hated leaving that house, it was all I ever knew in my life up to that point, it was all that my sister ever knew as well, we didn’t want to leave the house behind, but what could we say we were much too young and so we only had one choice and that was to leave. And we did leave, we left the home of our births, the home of our first words, first steps, first everything, just so we could go live somewhere truly unknown to us, we were like lost sheep in an unknown part of the forest with writhing, snarling wolves all around us. I knew as we left that home that we both would return to it someday in one form or another.
After staying at our aunt’s house for a few months we were both shipped off to separate orphanages and split apart. I never really knew what happen to her when we parted I just knew that I wanted to be near her and that I missed her so much that it truly hurt inside that I was sick to my stomach for many days, and that I was depressed for a good long while. After many years and some odd days I finally got to see her once again. The joy that was in me at that moment goes beyond description for if you do not know the feeling you will never understand it no matter how well I describe it here. After going to the cemetery on the anniversary of our father’s death we spoke little to one another until it was time to see one another again on the next anniversary.
The next anniversary of my father’s death was when I found out why Alice didn’t cry at the funeral that day. It was slightly overcast this reunion. Alice had a different look in her eyes then she did the other times, I asked if she was sick but she only muttered that she was fine. I then asked her why she never cried and she said this:
“Rick I never cried at the funeral for one reason, I was over the death, I mean I gave myself up of love, completely, I did not have any left to give. Between mom and dad there was none to give at the funeral and so I could not cry whether I wanted to or not, I just could not give myself over to that, I’m sorry.
There then fell a silence between the two of us that last what felt like an eternity.
“Do you remember…” I said, not in trying to get her to speak again but just wanting to hear her soft voice, “ that day like it was,” I paused only a short moment to gather my thoughts so as to better convey my meaning, “Only yesterday?”
“Yes Rick, yes I do, quite clearly… even now… so many years down the road… yeah I remember that day like it was just yesterday, when dad was buried here and beside him was mother’s grave still not settled. The flowers still fresh and fragrant. ”
The two stood there once again in each other’s silence, Rick could feel it moving them further apart than they had ever been apart even when they parted earlier in their lives. When Rick thought that the silence might rip them completely apart we finally spoke once again, though in a more subdued, submissive voice then before.
“Yeah.” I said. It was all that I could say, but what did she want from me? I cleared my throat so she wouldn’t hear it crackle and breakup when I spoke, “Alice, what do you remember the most about Mom and Dad?” She seemed to be withholding of her tongue not wanting to say, and so I repeated it, “What do you rem¯”
“Christmas… I remember Christmas,” she was becoming choked on her words, “When they couldn’t afford anything and so…” She was choked with her tears that she wouldn’t let out and so was drowning on them inside, “… had to… make them… Dad would make them… that’s what I remember.”
“Can I ask you a… a question? It has been eating at me for so long I feel like if I don’t ask now that it will consume me.” I said, not really sure how to handle the situation at hand. By now Alice had covered her face with her hands and had fallen to the ground on her knees next to the grave. I let myself give way and I felt to the dirt too. I held her as best as I could but I knew that it was not good enough. She looked at me and I finally saw for once in her life after our father’s death tears in her eyes. She then stood abruptly and helped me stand as well. I looked back into her eyes and felt like something was taken from me but then again like something was given to me. I felt a peaceful calm come over me. I didn’t say anything to her though I know that I should have, but I held my tongue. I looked away at the oak tree that was atop the hill as it always had been. The leaves on the tree seemed to tell me something but I just could not understand what it was, and then I looked back to where she was. And there in her spot was a single primrose, I looked for her but to no prevail, she was gone and I knew this. I begin thinking of something else and let it slip my mind as I walked back to my car. As I got in there was a message awaiting me. I called the number and a woman’s voice came on, this voice I had never heard before in my life yet it sounded so familiar that I felt like it was almost in the car with me at that moment.
“Mr. Crane?”
“Yes this is he.”
“Sir, I have some bad news, are you seated?”
“Yes I am, please give me the news.”
“Sir your sister Alice has just passed away,”
I wasn’t think at that moment, “When?”
“About an hour ago sir.”
“Thank you.”
I sat there in silence and a daze, in shock for about an hour. I then realized why my sister had had that look in her eyes. Though I’m sure that you would like to know the answer to this, I suppose it is better that I not tell you and let you come up with the answer by yourself as I had to.
