Grace's Story (mid2000s)

ancestral

1

The lakelands west of the Abitibi  east of the Driftwood: this is where the story begins. 
Solidly brought forth: ancestor to offspring  
carried forward through             

          a century

          a land of winter

      peopled by spirit and burden

            command

            fruitful

            carried

 Springtime in their souls  Cold harsh spirit wanting 

      envelopped by the landwaters

      north of the Height of Land

      north of Shield

      claylands flat into

 green muskeg  earth flowing into Great-North-Sea

      flat landwater soul

      delicious fragrant air

      those first few people:

cree   franco/anglo:euro 

those people:us

this is a story of some of them some of us

2

Earlier in the South, Seaforth near the great lake Huron: Was it the Thirties or the Forties? Grace, you were there, fervent of spirit, a flapper, I was told. I’m not sure what that means; but somehow, I’m seeing a woman strong.

The few photos that I do have show a person of vibrancy. You, Jack and Glenn. I try to make sense of the relationships. Told that you were married to one of those brothers: my grandfather’s brothers. One looks like me . The blood flow of generations - to me, to this new century. 

I figure maybe he was like me, too -not such a good choice if it’s about Loving Women. 

I could see it in one of my mother’s brothers, and there it is in my mother’s uncle. 

Things are different now. I’m sorry it wasn’t so for you, Glenn, nor you, Uncle                  

(but that’s another story). This is Grace’s story, really.

I asked my mother’s oldest sister, about you this summer: 
to find out about you, about who you were.

She told me about Glenn joining the army during one of the wars -the second one, I guess. Did he ask you, or did he just go? I’m thinking, from hearing the stories, that it was probably the latter. You were left then, with the children, with your hunger. So you dated. Alice mentioned something about servicemen. And then the children being taken away.

 

  It was a different time. Maybe Glenn and you wouldn’t have married  if things had been different for him

 and for you. You could have found a man truly capable of loving you. You could have been the person you wanted to be. And he, the person that he needed to be.

(This is all speculation on my part, of course;

      but the story does seem plausible. I’ve seen it in my own lifetime -close to home.)

  My favourite photograph of you is the one with the big toothsome smile, your 1920s hair. I see a baby’s leg in the corner of the photo -possibly a doll.

 The verdant lushness in the other  photos tell me the setting is Seaforth or Goderich -some Victorian garden, at an ancestral home. (I’ve driven through there once, but not to stay.)

  Your estranged son visited you in the nursing home

       when you were older, is what my aunt told me. She lost touch with him.

    Was that him in the photograph,

                   that chubby baby leg in the corner?

              Grace, your story is not finished.