Margaret's Musings

Laundry Day

Down and up the basement stairs
   In and out the door
To the line and back again
   Twenty times or more

Bend to reach the basket
   Stretch to reach the line
Bend and stretch, bend and stretch
   Twice a hundred times

But oh, the satisfaction
   Now the job is done
Sheets and towels, sheets and sox
   Hanging in the sun

Now I can take an hour
   In the blessed rocking chair
Elevate the aching legs
   May none disturb me there

                         (summer 1993)

A little over a week ago I spoke at my grandmother's funeral.  My words from that day became this addition to my blog, which has since become my most viewed post.  As noted in my speech, my grandmother was a lover of literature.  Nearly every time anyone visited her she talked about just finishing or being in the middle of a book (or several).  When her age forced her to move from her home into an apartment my mom and her siblings began to sort through her many, many, many belongings, and in doing so began to find notepads with jottings and poems and lamentations and more.  We all began to realize that Grandma probably spent as much time writing as she did reading.

When she died the writings she left were gathered and read and shared and then boxed.  As I saw snippets of her work, and heard stories of the volumes I had yet to see, I made the comment that Grandma would have made a wonderful blogger.  Which maybe was a little inaccurate - now that I've started to look through the first folder I pulled out of the first tub of her literary musings I realize that Grandma was a wonderful blogger....without a blog.  Tonight I share a bit of her work - the Laundry Day poem that led tonight's post and one more to follow - so her words can reach beyond the inside of a tub.  She would have made a wonderful blogger.....she should have been a wonderful blogger....and now she will be.

May 1, 2003.  Exactly one decade after Laundry Day.  My grandpa was battling cancer, again.  He and Grandma had been married nearly 59 years on this date.  Had lived in the same house on the same farm for all of those years, but now he spent nights in the nursing home while getting rides to the farm to spend most days.  He would live another two years, but on this day Grandma wrote the following poem.

Spring breezes whisper softly
Birds sweetly trill and sing
The sun above is warming
The country church bells ring.

Why then is my heart heavy?
Why do the tears still flow?
My love is going from me
And I cannot let him go.

Ah, but we have the promise
That we will meet once more.
That he will wait there for me
At Heaven's golden door.

And that he will not need to travel
The journey with no friend
Someone will keep him company
And hold his weathered hand.

And it is Christ our Savior
For he has finally come
To close accounts forever
And take his servant home.

So many questions that can never be answered:  Had he taken a turn for the worse?  Had he told her he felt the end was near?  Was she wearing down even though he may not have been?  How long had she been carrying these feelings, that she was losing him?  And were they ever-present for the next two years?  And probably my biggest question:  Did he ever see or hear this poem?  My gut says "no".  My heart says "hope so".

I have a tub the size of Rhode Island sitting in my living room, a box on top of that, and the folder I pulled these poems from.  I'm not sure where the contents of each, Grandma's words, will lead me, but I'll bring my readers along on occasion.  I don't expect her words to do for you what they do for me, but her writing deserves an audience.  Thank you for becoming what she never had.