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
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
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.
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.
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