Ed

I wrote this story for a contest and I got the rejection letter today. There were 101 entries so I am OK with that. But still, here is my story about Uncle Ed, published in cyberspace.

Ed
by Mary E. Gerdt
2010 all rights reserved


Ed sat at the kitchen table facing East. This is one of my sharpest memories of him. I moved into his house the first summer I was in Vermont. Looking back, it was a set of circumstances, a coalescence of events that brought me to first camp on Ed’s lawn and then sleep on the front porch days. I worked nights as a hospital RN.

The tractors, farm noises and fresh air lulled me into deep sleep which was rare in those days.

Ed sitting, staring, chewing. He didn’t say much. I wasn’t sure if he was happy I was there or not.

He looked old to me, frail.

I delighted when he smiled at something funny I said or I made him a meal.

It was a mystery to me how his body could keep going when he only ate donuts, coffee and fresh warm or cold cow’s milk.

He recalled to me baking potatoes once and by the time they came out of the oven they were petrified black rocks. He never cooked again.

I knew I was imposing and yet he would not say that or even give me a hint.

My observations of him and his frailty were both inaccurate.

He finished dunking his donuts and wiped his mouth. No small talk since his Mom died.

I thought about how she would have served him something nutritious and lovely, talked with him about what animals he had seen, gossip about neighbors, or what she needed at the store.

But now she was gone.

Then he had to endure a long court battle that stole his siblings and his legacy.

This day he doesn’t tell me any of that even though it was heavy on his mind.

Life without Mom, the farm as he knew it, and his brothers in particular, alive but hating him or what he has or what they think he has.

In reality, he had only a doughnut and some coffee before heading up the hill to his saw mill to cut shingles or planks.

Today the shingles and planks are on the houses around here. Some on the house we ended up buying.

Today we now live in Ed’s house. Ed has been gone many years. He ended up in ICU where I worked and he liked the attention all the young women gave him. I helped hold him while his nurse turned him. He latched onto me with all his strength. Unbelievable strength. He wouldn’t let go. He was hugging me tightly. I choked back tears and all I could do was smile large and laugh. I hugged him back and looked at the nurse. “Go ahead” she said with her eyes.

I wonder if he thought I was his mother? Or did he know who I was and hugged me anyway? I hoped for the latter.

He showed me how his life lacked intimacy, hugging even, and when he was offered a moment so close, I am grateful he chose me to latch onto.

I had to peel his fingers off slowly. I looked into Ed’s eyes, reassuring him, “it’s OK, Ed.“ I said softly over and over again as I had learned to do with people in ICU panic. I knew his nurse, my co worker was busy. Ed needed to rest from the illness. We propped up pillows and arranged his hands neatly. I held hands with him and gazed into those clear blue eyes and smiled.

He smiled back, even though he had only hours, days left to live. We thought he would pull through, knowing the veracity of Vermont farmers.

Now I sit where he sat to eat my breakfast, facing east, in the kitchen where Ed, his Mom and Dad, brothers and sisters, grandparents and great grandparents sat to eat.

The table gone, we replaced it with someone else’s table and made it our own.

Sometimes, when I am chewing, silently, staring at the East garden, I think about Ed.

How he would walk slowly, lumbering, almost shuffling, and fool me into thinking he was fragile.

I would look at what he had done that day and wonder how he did it all.

Like a magic trick, he would start with a pile of huge logs and at the end of the day, stacks of green boards and shingles. All alone except for transient visitors.

Little scribbles in his tiny notebook. Simple notations of whose logs, how cut, and prices.

One day we went away on vacation.

When we got back Ed scolded me.

Those were the days that I knew he knew I existed.

Even when I was in trouble it was a joy to get his attention because it confirmed that he knew who I was, an acknowledgement, an affirmation.

“Where were you last week?” He asked as mad as he could be.

I thought he was joking. That dry Vermont trick speech fooled me sometimes.

“We were on vacation.”

I should have known that was foreign to him. He never took vacation except one harrowing trip to Germany.

“I cut my finger off!”

Now I know this is no joke. And somehow, miles away, he thinks I was responsible.

I look at his hands dreading seeing a missing digit, so common to men who work around mills.

He has one finger in front of me with a little skin missing off the end.

I take a deep breath, relieved it was not the whole finger.

“Well what could I do about it?” I blurt out, trying to save face but knowing the stubborn Vermonter has already accused me. Tried me and ready to hang me.

I still feel guilty about camping on his porch. That was 10 years before.

Ed explained the entire scenario from cutting his finger off to coming up to our house looking for me, the nurse, and finding I had abandoned him when he needed me the most.

“I am so sorry” was all I could say as a refrain with each sentence he got out.

Some words I had trouble with, the Vermont vernacular. The feelings were clear.

And yet I wondered, years later, while holding him in the ICU bed, did he ever forgive me for not being there that day?

How many did he tell his story to, of his flatlander niece who said she was a nurse but where was she?

I had to develop a sense of humor over it all but that took years to develop.

Now I sit in his house, now our house, sit where he sat, look out the window he looked out,

Chewing my breakfast silently.

And I smile as I think of Ed.