D. Edwin Walker
18 May 1995
Orig. Circa 1980
The old woman waits at the mailbox, hoping for the mail carrier to stop on his route to deposit an envelope in her box. She waits with her breath held tight within her breast, as the carrier approaches, but only to say, "Good day," then pass on. The old woman drops her head, her expectant smile fading from trembling lips. She thinks to herself, "Maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow."
She stoops as she walks ever so slowly back to her house, her hair shining in the summer sunlight, as a few strands of gray pull from the pins and drop across her forehead. She opens the squeaking screen door and walks gingerly, painfully to her chair. Nearly breathless, she sits alone and her clouded eyes find her side table with the fading pictures of her dead husband, children, and grand children. Thoughts race through her mind, longing questions of how they are, what they are doing, how much they have changed since last seeing them.
The love the old woman has given is etched in the wrinkles upon her forehead, the gray of her hair, and the red, cracked, knuckles of her aching hands. The joints, swollen from overuse on scrub boards, doing clothes, ironing, and making beds. The eyes are dulled from long nights sewing clothes, costumes, and party dresses. Knees dried and cracked from the many hours hand scrubbing floors, and the many times she has pleaded with God to protect her children from harm and the evil temptations of life.
The old woman has erased all the insults and bad times from her memory, and now only remembers the good.
The old woman fears traveling far from her home. Her aged body is almost ready to return to the dust of creation. She fears death, not for death's sake, but for the leaving of her family. She speaks to others of her children and pridefully boasts of how well they have done in life, and how well the treatment is that she receives from them. But then she returns to her empty, quiet house, looks at her fading pictures, and dreams.
The old woman's life was given willingly for her family as she sees them in her mind. Her spirit is all but broken as she sits and waits for some type of contact from those she has worked so hard to please and care for.
No visit, no mail, no call by phone. The sun has slipped behind the hill and a small cracking voice can be heard singing, "Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me."
