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HER GRANDMOTHER,
Early Morning Refrain
It was very late, no more than a hour
before sunrise.
We sat at the kitchen table; we had
been up all night.
Four decades had passed, more than
forty years
Had separated the grown-up woman from
the story
She was telling me about her early
life.
Her grandmother was not beautiful.
No one ever claimed that she was
brilliant,
But she painted well, an artist.
Today her family treasures and enjoys,
Landscapes and still lifes,
Wonderful evidence of her output and
gift.
She applied the oils heavily,
Using trowel and brush, and even a
putty knife,
And once she readied her board upon an
easel,
Grandma finely captured wood and river,
And the rural architecture, the scenes
All around her north New Jersey home.
She also remarkably rendered the
wonder,
The special furl and spray of the
Atlantic Ocean waves
Which rushed upon her state’s
southern shore.
And following the common adage,
Different time and place, who knows the
fame,
The renown she might have attained?
2.
For all intents and purposes,
Her granddaughter, a toddler miss, was
orphaned.
The child's mother was sick,
And was to spend a long-time in
sanatorium,
When prevalent medical wisdom
prescribed quarantine,
That was the era before the antibiotic
cure.
With no real prospect for long-term
survival,
Doctors used isolation in hope of
preventing reinfection,
That and brutual surgical procedure won
a few some extra time.
The father was gone; he wandered off,
And he started another family.
Hard to explain the every detail here,
But rumor has it that jealousy reigned;
The new wife was demanding and her man
Had to sever all connection to his
previous life.
The father of three never visited the
children's mother,
And rarely visited the girls he had
left behind.
The child, whose story enfolds here,
was the last born of three,
She had two older sisters, likewise
deserted,
And to manage their care the siblings
were divided.
The elder two were sent to the paternal
grandparents.
She, the third, the youngest of the
girls,
Was brought to the home of her mother’s
mother and father.
3.
Grandma dressed her granddaughter in
pricey sets,
And family and neighbors seem to
appreciate it,
“Oh isn’t Elsie wonderful!” They
often said.
The girl was tall with curly blonde
hair,
And cheek bones high enough to make for
real beauty.
Possessing natural, happy disposition,
Her eyes beamed, and when
all-dressed-up,
She looked as though she might model
For catalog or children’s fashion
magazines.
But Elsie, she did have her ways.
(I am told to put it nicely!)
She paid little heed to the child's
underwear,
Mainly interested in outward
appearance,
Yes, we might think it over,
Consider grandmother's perspective for
a moment.
No one else would ever see it,
Though the cotton might be tattered and
old,
And Lord knows should have been
replaced,
Especially when one considers the small
expense.
Otherwise, she never hesitated at the
dollar amount,
Never thought twice about any outfit’s
cost,
Had no regard, whatsoever the garment's
price,
If she thought it the right look, she
bought it.
And, too, Grandma was a master
seamstress,
Who dressed herself in wool coats whose
linings
Matched her hand-made silk dresses; her
sewing favored subtle
Flower prints, nothing garish and she
used the same
Sense of design and talent to dress the
little girl like a doll.
She was a healthy woman, who loved her
dogs and cats,
Fed those both inside and outside the
house,
She took in every kind of stray, animal
and human.
A former dancer,
She had her training in the chorus at
LUNA PARK,
And, all who knew her swear,
She practiced over-head kicks, when
She had already celebrated birthdays
past her seventieth.
Did she swap a place for her star on
the walk,
Take lead role in gilded cage instead?
No way, she was tough and worked hard,
Created a wonderful home and with
natural talent,
She cultivated a big garden, a
green-thumb delight.
And guess what? To top it off,
She married well, a union man, a good
provider,
A leader, he was respected and adored
by all.
Sure he was a hard-nosed guy.
He had his trouble with the Schuberts
and the mob,
No easy matter getting a salary for
men,
Who changed the bulbs on marquee
boards,
Who hauled wire, and painted the sets,
And who had jobs which often meant
Long days of going up and down ladders.
Her grandpa guaranteed a decent wage
For the man whose job it was
To clean and bag after circus
elephants.
Over the years, testimony holds,
-- Here we have no mean feat --
They fostered twenty-five kids, adopted
four,
And then wound up having a girl of
their own.
4.
But something went amiss;
Grandpa went upstairs to bed,
Grandma slathered in oil of
wintergreen,
Slept on living-room couch at night,
Hard to believe,
How long a time they spent their lives
that way.
As many might have already surmised,
More to the story here.
Five years had passed before the
grandchild's mother
Was finally released and then allowed
to return home.
The quarantine had not allowed her
children to visit.
And how the little girl had missed her
mom!
Her supplications reverent, she asked
God,
She prayed every night, and all through
the day.
Hard to imagine, feel the hurt inside,
how sad,
The young daughter's yearning her
mother's soon return.
Though not entirely surprising, given
the weakness
And mortal fault at root in human
character,
Her grandmother balked when it came
time to return
The grand daughter to whom she had
grown attached,
The girl she helped to educate and
rear.
She had come to believe that the child
was her own.
She used every kind of conceivable
excuse;
Why grandma found herself unwilling,
She had no desire to relinquish,
And she did not want to return the girl
to her mother.
She tried to keep the daughter and
mother apart.
Hope for Charity at some future
junction
May often temper us from strict moral
judgment,
Yet from the child's eyes grandma's
conduct was unforgivable.
5.
It was very late, less than the hour
before sunrise.
We sat at the kitchen table. We had
been up all night.
Four decades had passed in the life of
the grown woman
From events she told of her early life,
yet now it seemed
That for her no new day had ever lit
the horizon.
I heard the granddaughter wax on the
refrain,
Though she said it quiet and perhaps
she was tired,
But from her story I doubt very much
she was ashamed,
“I can not wish my grandmother were
here.
“I do not wish she were here today.”
