Letting Go & Leaving Behind

Katherine leaves behind...

Children who have learned at her knee and beyond, how to manifest corn chowder from a scanty larder, when to say “I” and when to say “me,” the critical importance of not ending a sentence with a preposition, the appropriate uses of adjectives versus adverbs.

She leaves children and grandchildren who remember her insistence on good manners and proper grammar, and who remember her voice as she read to them: The Little Prince, The Wind in the Willows, The Velveteen Rabbit, Through the Looking Glass, Tom Sawyer, The Secret Garden, and Now We Are Six.

She leaves behind half a jar of marmalade, 3 dozen crumpets, 2 cans B & M baked beans, and Boston brown bread made by an Angel, tied with a yellow ribbon looped around a sprig of juniper. She leaves a mix for making Pamela’s gluten free corn bread, “Little Hotties” hand-warmers, and hand knit mittens given to her last winter by Spring Creek angels.

She leaves a tall willow basket piled with scarlet throws, blue and garnet shawls, and wraps and scarves in a rainbow of colours. Pendleton blankets, gifts from progeny of Chief Joseph, solemnly placed around her shoulders in respect, admiration, and honor, are left behind.

She leaves sepia photographs with faces in them that we may never be able to identify, black and white shots of teens cavorting on the shores of Lake Tahoe, and a photograph of herself playing Lysander in Miss Branson’s school play.

She leaves a case of root beer for next summer’s floats, a stack of glasses fashioned from corn silk, (said to decay given enough time and sun and water), and Panda All Natural Soft Black Licorice in crackly yellow and grey packaging.

She leaves faint spidery lines taking the shape of her signature at the end of a letter dictated to, and committed to paper by, her amanuensis. She leaves the echo of her resonant voice unhurriedly reciting Yeats, Tennyson, Wood and the Psalms.

She leaves photos of grandchildren and children tucked into the edges of her mirrors: babies with cheeks like cherries, toddlers smiling through stray strands of hair, second-graders grinning into the camera on the first day of school, teens dressing for the school dance. Weddings, births, graduations…all are here.

She leaves her sewing basket with scissors, bees wax, pinking shears, lengths of elastic bands, clothing tags with our names embroidered in flowing script, cerise thread, and blue and brown and black, sewing needles of various sizes tucked into a small paper envelope, strips of lace, and extra bits from trimming....something. She leaves a silky smooth papier maché heart, and hanging from it, a shiny brass key, held there by a narrow pink silk ribbon. And a dark blue glass nazar to protect her from the evil eye.

She leaves coffee mugs that say Montcrest School on the sides, and include a block design of the original school-house. She leaves piles of size 12 shoes that so often seemed not quite long enough for her foot, but far too long to satisfy her yearning for small feet.

She leaves a chest of DVDs of her best-loved movies: Moonstruck, Quartet, Forrest Gump, Tootsie, Sordid Lives, Casa Blanca, Rain Man, The Big Lebowsky, and Key Largo.

Endless linear feet of books: leather bound volumes, paperbacks, hardcovers, art magazines, galleys. Some with notes, questions, or exclamation marks in the margins. Poetry, fables, fairy tales, essays, philosophy, religion, cartoons. She leaves them all for us, that we may continue to ponder the paradox and the puzzle of life on this plane.

She leaves behind the cold in her hands, the wind that made her shudder, the politicians that made her despair. She leaves the sound of her laughter watching The Colbert Report,  the sound of her held breath watching Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman arrive in the nick of time to save a life.

She also leaves, for all of us, imprints of her kindness, her compassion, her wit, her phenomenal memory, her gentle touch, her intolerance of intolerance, and her wide and unconditional embrace. And so much more...