Erinn Goes Abroad

Celebration!

I’m celebrating because I’ve finished all of my first major assignments but more importantly because *trumpets flourish* this is my 100^th entry! Oh the energy that has poured into this little corner of the internet. With blog writing one must constantly invent ways to reinvent poppycock, which I can assure you is no paltry task. I baked you all a cake as a celebratory gesture, but rather than be bothered by the logistics of distribution, I ate it myself. Problem solved.

The 100^th of anything ought to be quite phenomenal, I reckon! So I thought long and hard -which regretfully, I admit, was no more than a few seconds- when I recalled a story I had written in my journal as narrated by my 98 year old grandmother a few months back. It’s a little saccharine perhaps, but in a way that is authentic and makes me appreciate it all the more for it.

Granny King sat quietly in her recliner, with a long face framed by white wispy, chin length hair. One is easily drawn to her huge, light blue eyes- the kind of eyes that command attention- situated neatly behind a pair of spectacles. Tonight she shared with me an important story. Her gift of word this evening by all accounts surprised me as I’ve pressed her to recall similar instances before, feeling mystified by an era of the past. Her life as it happened is a relic in time that I may never fully comprehend, a glimpse of a memory I felt eager to entertain. But alas, my requests were generally left unmet with simply, “I can’t remember.”

Tonight some unknown force prompted her to tell a story. As it fell from her lips, I felt a rush of excitement, the kind of quiver one feels when one knows that something momentous is happening. It signaled me to hang on every word.

Granny’s paternal grandfather was named Abraham. The little fella enlisted in the militia at the age 14 to fight for the Union during the Civil War. When he returned from battle, he sought his love Elizabeth and they married at 17. [How they met is unknown to me and it’s countless curiosities such as this that wander about my head.] Abraham loved Lizzy very much. “He looked after her,” as Granny put it. He did whatever she asked, if only by her desire. He would, for example, fix her tabacco pipe for her. He would set it up just the way she liked it, with a coal on the opening of the pipe. He didn’t like it; it worried him. [Did he anticipate the dangers of smoking?] He was purported to have said,

“Who’s gonna look after Lizzy when I’m gone? No one can like I do.”

Many years passed, some were riveting and others less so. They remained together—a pair. When he was 89, Abraham took a fall and broke his hip. This was during the 1930s, hard times indeed and not one of the medical advances we boast today. The doctors advised not to operate and instead install a hospital bed in Abraham and Lizzy’s home. He was told he would remain in this bed until he passed.

So the family did as instructed and situated the hospital bed right next to Lizzy’s. Granny says that even then, he would look after her and every night when they went to bed, he’d reach his good leg across to Lizzy’s in order to protect her.

After some time passed, an elderly Lizzy passed away in her sleep. Granny says it was the only night Abraham did not reach his leg across to her bed. Their children were alerted in the morning and arrangements were made. But that afternoon, Abraham fell into a coma. Not long after, he passed away as well and they were given a joint funeral and burial.

I don’t know much about love, but I imagine that’s how it ought to be. It needs all the obvious stuff you’d expect like trust and affection but maybe more importantly, endurance. Their story reminds me of a quote I used to see a lot as a little girl.

“If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus 1 day, so I never have to live without you” –Winnie the Poo