[guide.chat] Short Story
- From: "Elizabeth Kay" <ebeth.kay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Guide.chat" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:39:28 +0100
This is a true story from the past told as fiction; entirtled "What is Life"
written by E;izabeth Kay
I
When Beatrice cane downstairs that morning she found her mother in tears bent
over the kitchen table with her head on her hands. Her father was sitting in
his chair before the fire, head bowed, hands clasped between his knees. Robert
her younger brother, only three years old, stood by his mother's side stroking
her arm. Beatrice crept up to her father's side wondering at this strange start
to their day. Usually her father was absent at this time,having gone to work.
Her mother would be busy preparing breakfast for herself, Beatrice and Robert.
This morning the porridge pan was still on the shelf. Beatrice could not
understand why. What could be the matter?
Sensing her prescence her father looked up. He drew her closer and said
quietly, "Uncle David has died."
Beatrice pondered this. She was six years old and had not encountered death
before but knew what it meant. She had known Uncle David was ill. His three
children had spent the previous day with them after they returned from school,
but the fact that he might die had not been mentioned. Her cousins now had no
father and the uncle who had been part of her short life had left them for
ever, tears ran down her cheeks.
"I thought the doctor could make him better" she sobbed.
"That is what we all hoped" her father said. "She did all she could, but it was
not enough".
The children all stayed at home that day and the following day. Beatrice's
mother, who was a dressmaker, got busy making mourning outfits for herslf and
aunty Bess, uncle David's wife. Bought clothes were too expensive. Hats and
gloves that had been worn several times before were retrieved from boxes on top
of the wardrobe along with black veils and scarves.
The minister called to see them. Uncle David had been a respected member of the
local church as organist and choirmaster. Just before he had been taken ill he
had been training the little singers in preparation for the annual sermons day.
The minister talked to the children about Uncle David saying that although
everybody was sad about his death, we should not grieve too much.
Jesus had called him and he was now safe in heaven with God and the angels.
Beatrice tried to imagine heaven. When she asked where it was she was told it
was beyond the clouds and stars and that it was the place to which the spirits
of good people would go when they died. Her imagination conjured up amother
land above the sky, but wondered what was above that.Could there be another
sky? A world without a sky would be a very strange place indeed. She decided to
keep this thought to herself.
On the day of the funeral she walked hand in hand with cousin Jean behind the
slow moving hearse in the poicession of relatives and friends,
carrying a small posie of flowers picked that morning from Uncle David's
garden. As they passed the homes of their neighbours,curtains were drawn
across and every person at home stood, with head bowed, at his, or her front
door.
For many years after she had visions of her grand- mother having to be restored
froma bottle of brandy as the coffin was lowered into the grave.
She could not understand why grandna was so upset when her son was going
straight to heaven. From what the minister said heaven was a wonderful place
where one day she would neet him again and where they would then live for ever.
A few weeks before Christmas that same year Beatrice was standing on a stool at
the dining table helping her mother make a paper chain. when she began to feel
a strange sensation as though she were drifting in space and almost fell off
the stool. Alarmed, her mother, put her arms around her daughter. Beatrices
face was deathly pale and she was shivering. She had not been to school that
day complaining,when she got up that morning, of not feeling well.
"What's wrong love," her mother asked.
Beatrice shook her head "I don't want to say," she said and closed her eyes.
"But you must tell me,"her mother gently persisted.
Beatrice leaned towards her and whispered "I am going to die".
"But we won't let you die," her anxious mother exclaimed.
A bed was brought downstairs and a fire kept going in the parlour day and night
and for days it seemed that Beatice might not recover. Pneumonia the dreaded
illness from which her uncle David had dies was now afflicting his niece and
was approaching the climax. Her mother after hours of sitting by her bedside
had been relieved by her father when after days of delirium and a night of
fearful dread, Beatrice opened her eyes and in a weak but lucid voice said,
"Can I have a drink of water". The climax was over.
Coming downstairs,and seeing her daughter quietly asleep her mother feared the
worst, but just at that moment Beatrice opened her eyes to see her mother
twisting the brass knobs on the bed head with fear in her eyes. Her father
spoke,"She's alright now", he said.
It was six weeks before she had fully recovered and the bed went back upstairs.
Beatrice enjoyed her convalescence but had to learn to walk again She was glad
to find that she was back with her family and had not gone to heaven but she
had not been afraid,after all uncle David would have been there to look after
her. She would just have to wait a bit longer to see the world without a sky.
Footnote:
Twenty years later her own daughhter fell victim to pneumonia. The same lady
doctor attended her. By this time the earliest antibiotics had been discovered.
There was no crisis and the child. although poorly for several days, soon
recovered. Administering the wonder drug the lady doctor sadly remarked "If
only this had been discovered before your uncle David died he would still be
alive today. Elizabethh
Other related posts:
