Look at this!  Not even officially up and running yet and we've already had our first Prose Submission!  This is great!  Keep it coming in guys.  As this site and the other Library sites grow I will add anchors in so that you will be easily able to navigate these pages but for now just scroll through.

Our first Submission is from Rowenna and is about losing a loved one. It's a sad tale but one that has touched all of our lives at one point or another.  Rowenna and I hope it will be of help to you.

Eulogy in Springtime

Michelle Mead

In Memory of Dorothy McQueen

1925-1999

For about a month now I have felt and seen the return of spring. The longer days, the subtly stronger sunlight, bulbs peeking from the ground in that glorious green, redness at the tips of trees and shrubs with buds of new leaves forming. I have the itch: bags of seed starting mix lay scattered throughout my kitchen, and the annual clutter of grow lights and seedling trays will soon take over my house until sometime in May.

Three weeks ago I was scrawling happily in my gardening journal this year's plans for my yard; pouring through seed catalogs looking for lovely new plants to add to my growing designs. My whole family has been bitten by that invisible bug carrying spring fever, for which there is no cure except sunshine and green grass to roll in. For Valentine's Day weekend we made a road trip to Vermont: road trips are a serious side effect of spring fever in my house. On practically last minute whims we load up the car and go; new sights and smells quench the lust for the outdoors enough to make the confines of our house more bearable throughout the last vestiges of winter.

Vermont restored us so magically that walking back through the door that weekend left us with the feeling that nothing could phase us. We would meet the remainder of winter with a grin; even though the snow up north was almost to my hips, we still scented spring in the air and our heads were full of springy things to do. That trip to Vermont seems so long ago to me now. I still have spring fever pretty bad, but now it seems almost therapeutic and not so frenzied.

When we returned from Vermont those short weeks ago there were two messages on our answering machine. Not that I expected any differently: my mom and Granny call me every Sunday, and I hadn't let much of anyone know we were taking off for the weekend. What did surprise me was hearing my mom's voice telling me Granny was in the hospital, and it didn't look good. The tears and near-panic in my mother's voice hit something sweet and vulnerable in me, and before I really had time to explore the emotional turmoil that message stirred in me, I was on a plane to Ohio with my two year old son in tow. Just before leaving for the airport I called the hospital again and spoke to my aunt. Granny had been moved to ICU and in a broken voice she told me she was sleeping; maybe forever.

Throughout that long day's flights I spent my time trying to ignore the voice of my aunt playing over and over in my head. I pictured the soft hands of the Goddess cupping my airplane and I beseeched the gods to please let her wait until I could say goodbye. It was hard. The past year has seen the passing of my husband's two grandfathers; my grief for them was pale and insignificant compared to the fear and pain I felt during that interminable trip to Ohio, which I knew wasgoing to be a deathwatch.

Each spring since we arrived here in Connecticut we brought Granny to come visit us. We paid for her flight, gave her our bed to sleep in, wined and dined her. Until I talked with her friends and our family in Ohio I never realized how much she loved and appreciated those trips. I'm very glad we did that for her, although at the time I was motivated by purely selfish reasons: what girl wouldn't love to have her Granny come visit every year? Grannies are great people: and it gave me a chance to spoil her back for spoiling me so much when I was a girl. She loved lighthouses. We took her to the lighthouse museum in Stonington; to the Seaport to listen to shanty songs and take her picture with costumed men. She strolled up and down Pequot Ave. in front of the New London lighthouse with her camera alternately pretending not to gawk and openly straining to get a good picture of Ledge Light. We fixed her lobster, because you can't come to New England without eating lobster. We took her to Devil's Hopyard, our family's special spot. We sat on the rocks at the base of the waterfall and dabbled our feet in the Eight Mile River. Every night we sat up late laughing and sharing stories, pouring over pictures and knitting. Last year I turned her on to the frozen foods delivery service I use, and she called me shortly after returning home to let me know she had called her local distributor for service. We laughed over that; I can still hear her telling me how good that ice cream was! She played with my son incessantly as only grandmothers can do. She indulged him and tickled him and played silly games. She sang the lullaby she is famous for lulling three generations with till she was hoarse, then drank some Coke and sang some more. She was a beautiful woman with a ready laugh and a big nose that honked when she blew it sometimes. I played my Andrews Sisters and Ella Fitzgerald CDs for her. She was so surprised the first time I did: swaying and bouncing in her chair, she looked at me with wonder in her eyes and said "You're playing my music!" She laughed and hugged me when I told her how I loved that music.

Those are golden sweet memories I think will flood me every spring now. Before the euphoric rush that envelopes me at seeing the first bulbs and seedlings; before the anticipation for the first new green leaves. When I arrived in Ohio, we went straight to see her. I remember seeing my grandfather laying in a hospital bed when I was twelve, wasted and horribly small from his battle with leukemia. The relief at seeing Granny looking for all the world as if she were sleeping disappeared the following Sunday when the family decided to remove her breathing tube. Granny would have been mad enough at us for putting that tube in her; it was something we had passed laughingly amongst ourselves during that long week of waiting for her to die or wake up. Knowing that a no machines clause was in my own living will made it only a little easier when I walked in to read her Helen Steiner Rice poems the afternoon we took it out.

Standing there massaging her feet, watching her labor so hard for each breath brought the realization pounding home to me that she was never going to open her eyes and wink at me again. I stayed with her for hours, singing "You are so Beautiful" and reading, massaging, and crying. I blessed her and prayed for her. I prayed with her friends and minister. I hugged my family and we dried each other's tears.

Early the next morning I held my mother while she cried and told me she had gone. Playing on the radio when she crossed the veil had been "You are so Beautiful" she said between sobs. I just held her and stroked her hair, rocking her like a baby. There aren't many times in a woman's life when she rocks her own mother. It was good to do that for her. At that time, and the days following, it didn't feel like spring to me any more.

It snowed the night before her memorial service while all five of us grandkids got together and made a beautiful happy collage of color copies from old photos of Granny, dotted with flowers I had cut from my seed catalogs. Coming together as a family in our grief was comforting and planted in me a strong tie with people I hadn't seen in twelve years: not what I envisioned growing in me this spring, but Providence has it's own agenda for us. I brought home two pots of daffodils from her service: one is going to be planted at Devil's Hopyard, because she loved it there and the memory of her shining eyes in that place will be among the warmest I have of her. Warm, alive, and laughing, she chased our naked son all over the place even though she had suffered from emphysema for several decades. The other pot I will plant here in my yard, and dig up the bulbs when we move on to plant in our next yard...nodding in the spring breezes, they will remind me of her sunny disposition; her willingness to love everyone (especially children); her laugh and joy in life and acceptance of all. Grief is a new emotion to me.

I was totally unprepared for the loss of my Granny. It has left a hole inside me, tender and aching. Comforting friends have told me the grieving process can take years. Oddly, if Granny had chosen to leave us in the fall or winter I think it would have been harder to accept that. But she chose to go gently into that good night during this annual time of rebirth and renewal. I am proud of her for that. Knowing that she is reunited beyond the veil with her loved ones and friends during the celebration of spring gives me renewed faith and joy in this magical time. I feel lonely without her, but I am glad my son got to know his GiGi and that she got to happily bounce him on her knee. I am burdened with a profound sense of sadness and loss: the depths of my own grieving surprise me. It leaves me drained and sorrowful most of the time, but with each passing day it grows less and more manageable. I have asked her to let me know when she is smiling down on me so I can blow her kisses.

I imagine many people this spring and summer will see a curly-haired woman, often with a toddler in tow, stopping to look deeply at their gardens and flowers. That would be me, taking the time to appreciate life and color in the world following in the wake of my loss. I may ask for a flower, or I may just walk on. Spring is a powerful time that moves us to do many things: the return of sunshine and warmth and green growing things fills us with excitement and energy. I won't forget that while I grieve. To do so would tarnish the memory of a truly magnificent woman who let us know she was tired and wanted to rest. I'm going to grow red geraniums this year: as many as I can. Granny loved red geraniums. And true to her philosophy of life, just like our favorite Andrews Sisters song, I've gotta accentuate the positive.

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