Ernest Was A Dancer
My friends laugh at me. They say my children are taking advantage. ‘A free 80 year old babysitter, that's all you are, a silly, old grandma being used as a babysitter.’ But they don't know. They've become bitter in their old age. They have forgotten that baby smell. They have forgotten the feel of baby skin, the way it yields so gently to the touch, the way it blanches then springs back to pink when you release it. That resiliency, yes, resiliency, what she will need most in her life.
Look, you sleep so peacefully, my child. I must watch closely, every breath. There shall be no crib death while I stand vigil. This room used to be your daddy’s when he was your age. But now when you come to visit, I give them my room and I share this one with you.
"Stay out as late as you like," I told them. It gives me more time with you, darling Julia, more time to talk with you about our past, where you come from. My children have heard it so often. They still listen out of politeness, but sometimes I see them exchange glances. Sometimes, they forget to be polite.
But you, my precious, are always attentive. You never interrupt, never say you must leave now, sorry but I have to go. You lie there hanging on my every word, waiting for the next adventure I have to tell you, of people speaking a language you may never hear and certainly will never speak. Those ghosts and memories that still haunt me will become part of that wonderfully uncluttered brain of yours.
Look, you are moving. Have you had enough sleep for now? Let me hold you, my darling. Your eyes are opened wide. Oh my what a big smile. Shall we begin, my love?
Your father will say that you are called Julia because they liked the name. But I planted seeds with him just as I am planting seeds with you. Before he could speak I taught him to associate that name with strength, with promise, with love. He wondered why I was not surprised when he told me that they had decided to call you Julia.
Come, let's sit in this rocker by the window and I shall tell you about her, about them all. Oh good, you are alert and happy. Look how you smile at Grandma. Look at the excitement in your face. Your one-year-old brain is so clear, so ready to receive. And mine, so full of nonsense, confused by heroics and tragedies, so mystified by this world. You, filled with life and me, filled with loss.
At times like these, alone at night with my thoughts, I often think about your grandpa. How you would have loved him, how he would have loved you. Oh, how I miss him. You know, darling Julia, we were quite a handsome couple when we were young. How proud I was to be his wife to walk the street with him and know that many of those who greeted him with a cheery ‘Hi Doc,’ were alive because of him. But I will save his story for another night.
Sometimes when I talk about the past, I wonder if I am preparing myself for the end. Something to calm the fear that I know could rise in me. Strange, that it doesn't. I don't fear the end now, not the way I did when I was younger. How frantic I was then to survive. Oh, darling Julia, I am so sad that I won't have the chance to see you become a woman, but there is nothing I can do about that. Except, what I am doing tonight, preparing you for the future with stories from the past, stories of our family, the first to come here to America. In years to come when someone speaks your name or you speak it yourself you will feel a swell of hope and strength and laughter and life and although you will not understand why, it will help to shape you, to shield you against life’s daggers.
Now, where shall I begin? My mother, your great grandma, lived in a small town in southern Belgium, only a few miles from the French border. Like most of the family, mother and father were farmers. But years before I was born, our family found a new, more reliable, source of income, weaving and making clothing for English haberdashers. This supplemented their meager farm earnings and for a while they flourished. Then the English found cheaper labor in Wales and Ireland and the income from textiles disappeared. With prospects dwindling in our town, the younger members of our village looked to the west, to America, as the hope for our future. Mother’s older brother, Ernest, was the first in our family to make the crossing. When he returned, he was full of stories about the mills of New England, the opportunities, the high salaries and the many jobs that were available for skilled weavers like those in our family.
Then, when I was just your age, darling Julia, my father died of a burst appendix. Mother, now a widow with a small child and little means of earning, worried how she would support me. So, the next time Ernest left for America, she went with him and I was left in the care of my grandparents. She told Grandfather she'd be back to get me within 6 months. But it wasn’t 6 months, darling Julia. It was more than four years before I would see my mother again.
Oh Julia, what is it? Why do you cry now? Is my story too sad for you? Do you feel what it must have been like for a little girl to be without her mother? Yes, yes it's true. It was difficult.
Grandfather was more than 6 feet tall with a broad chest, thick arms and an austere, rugged face. He was a serious man who had seen so much hunger, disease and death in his family that he found little to smile about. He did smile when he was around us children though; he called all of us, my cousins and me, his children. For us, he poured out his warmth, his hope for the world of the future. A child, any child, could not be around Grandfather for long without feeling loved.
Of course, I don’t remember any of this. I was too young. But, the story has been told to me so often, it has become as real as any of my true memories.
My first real memory is Uncle Ernest's homecoming.
Grandmother cried as she hugged her son. Grandfather stood next to them, his hand on his son’s shoulder. But, Grandfather too, had tears streaming down those rugged cheeks. I watched from my place along the bench and I think I was afraid of Uncle Ernest who was as big as Grandfather and seemed, at least for the moment, to replace him as the center of our family.
Father and son sat at opposite ends of the long table, Ernest telling about his trip across the ocean, and what life was like in the mill towns in New England. When he paused to take a bite or swill down some ale, the room was silent; even Grandfather didn't interrupt. Ernest knew how to tell a story and to make sure that everyone understood. He spoke mainly for the adults but always had little side stories for us children.
‘The last trip over,’ he said, his voice rising in measured exuberance. ‘I found a puppy, practically newborn among the crates in the ship’s hull. I don't know where she came from, but I nursed her for days on my ration of milk and table scraps and then hid her in the lining of my coat when we arrived in the harbor in Boston. That pup,’ he threw his head back laughing, ‘whimpered and whimpered all the time I was waiting in the immigration line. I tried to quiet her down but she just cried this low moan like sound. I knew if they found her they wouldn't let me take her off the boat and they might even deport me.’ His voice lowered to ominous tones. He hovered close, leaning in to us children.
‘But I couldn't let anything happen to that little one. She had survived the trip across the Atlantic and I was determined that she would taste America the way I had.’ He paused, building suspense in us all, then drew the children in closer to him. ‘There was a woman with a baby standing in line in front of me. The baby was asleep and its rubber pacifier had slipped down in the blankets. So I gently lifted it off the blanket and slipped it into my coat until I felt the warm nose of the pup. When I gave her the nipple, I didn't know what to expect. But you know what? She took it and started sucking so quietly no one could hear her.’
Ernest sat back in his chair and took out his pipe, tapping at the bowl. ‘I went through customs as fast as I could. The officials all knew me, of course. I have been through so often.’ He bragged as he struck a match on his shoe and lit his pipe. He drew on it, the smoke rising in great clouds. Then he turned to me, ‘Elisa, do you know where that puppy is now?’ I shook my head and looked down, embarrassed that the eyes of the family were on me.
‘I gave her to your mother. She's going to be your puppy as soon as you get to America.’
When I heard that I just couldn’t control myself. I jumped up ‘A puppy, my own puppy!’ I called out and hugged Uncle Ernest. I think that was the first time I loved my uncle as much as Grandfather. But when I looked to the end of the table, Grandfather was scowling. Suddenly, he got up and taking his pipe, left the house.
How clear these ancient memories are to me, darling Julia. I remember still the spot by the door where I waited at the end of the day for Grandfather to come home from the fields. There was a small rise in front of the house so that I couldn't see him until he was very close. He seemed so weary as he approached the house each evening. But when he reached me he always found the strength to lift me up and carry me in to dinner. I was the chosen. He never carried the others while I was around. At the time I thought it was because he loved me best. Later, I realized he was trying to even things out. You see, I was the only child without a parent. But at the time I didn't know that, and although I dreamed about my own mother every day, I was not unhappy, and I thought the sun rose and set over Grandfather's wide shoulders.
For the next several days Grandfather said little as his son went on and on about America. Then at dinner on his third night home, Grandfather erupted with anger the likes of which I had never seen before.
‘And why is it so much better there?’ his voice boomed. ‘Tell me again. Aren't the days spent in those mills in your America just as long as we spend here in the fields? So you have a little more money. So what! You pay the mill owner dearly for your homes. How much does a family end up with at the end of the week? It's different for you, Ernest, you're not married. But try to live if you have two or three children around.’ He was raving angry. His hands flailed at the air defiantly. ‘This is your home,’ his fist pounded the table. ‘This is home for all of us. Why do you try to lure the family away with false hopes of riches in this America of yours?’
When he could take no more, Grandfather pushed his chair back from the table and stormed out the door, grabbing his cap on the way. There was silence around the table. Even Ernest didn't speak. I watched from my seat as Grandfather, head down, stormed away from the house. I felt myself about to cry. I was afraid and angry at Uncle Ernest for making Grandfather so upset. I ran to the window trying to find him, hoping he would not go far. It terrified me when I didn’t know where he was. He stopped when he reached the top of the small hill in front of our house and leaned wearily against the skeletal trunk of a dying elm. I looked to Grandmother, then ran to the door. I slipped on my wooden shoes, and stepped outside. I stood with my back against the stone of the house and watched as Grandfather took his pipe from his pocket, lit it and began to draw slowly on it, still staring out across the land.
I didn't know how long Grandfather would stay out there, but I knew that I wouldn't go in until he did. I lowered myself down next to the flower box on the side of the front door. I couldn't have understood what was happening. I was too young.
‘You know, she'll be going too,’ Grandmother whispered. ‘You can't change that. Nothing you say to Ernest can change that.’ Grandfather didn't answer, but gently placed me on my bed, the smell of his pipe surrounding me as I fell to sleep.
Those shoes hanging on the wall, those funny looking green, wooden shoes are the ones I wore that night darling, Julia. When I left Belgium, I refused to go without them. I have hung them there so that when you are older, they will spark your curiosity. They are there to, to make you ask questions.
But I am so far from the story of Julia; we old-folks, how we ramble. But you have not noticed. Your eyes are wide open. You are alert and now you laugh, the wonder of that mobile entertains and distracts you. Here little one, sit in your crib while I tell you about your name.
Ernest returned to America but was back in less than a year. Now it was time for me to travel with him to join my mother. The night before we were to leave, I went to bed early but couldn't sleep. I listened silently as Grandmother and Grandfather gathered things for my journey, setting aside my favorite doll, my dresses, and, of course, those wooden shoes. But in the more than an hour that I lie there listening, I never heard either speak.
We left the house just as the sun was rising. The plan was for Grandfather and Grandmother to walk me down the hill to the train station about a mile from the house. From there I would go to Antwerp where the conductor would make sure that I got off, and Ernest would meet me. Together we would board a steamer and travel to America and my waiting mother.
They each held one of my hands as we left the house. We walked by the elm where I had watched Grandfather smoke his pipe that night. I was swinging playfully from their grip when I heard the whistle of my approaching train.
We had just started down the hill, when Grandfather stopped, and knelt next to me. I understood so little of what was happening, but Grandfather touched my face with the back of his hand, then kissed my cheek. When he stood up, I was still pressed to his cheek. He would carry me the rest of the way to the train.
‘She's old enough to walk by herself, you know,’ said Grandmother.
‘I know,’ said Grandfather and continued down the hill, holding me too tightly, I thought. I felt the stubble of his beard pressed against my face and looked with gaping eyes only inches from his at the train pulling into the station.
They settled me on the train, hugged and kissed me, then they were gone. Grandmother, wiping the tears from her eyes, stayed at the station until we were ready to go. But Grandfather walked back up the hill, his head bowed. I watched him through the train window as he reached the top of the hill. He stood waving to me as the train left the station, a gesture I know now that not only waved goodbye, but was his resignation to the world’s evolution which he could neither understand nor control. I didn't know it then, my precious Julia. But I would never see Grandfather again. Oceans were made to be crossed only once in those days, unless, of course, you were Uncle Ernest.
It took me a while to get used to having a mother. But once I did, she became the center of my world. But that, darling Julia, is another story to be saved for another night. This night I have promised that I would tell you about your name. So you say, when do I hear about Julia? You are laughing, my love. What has struck you so funny all of a sudden? Your Grandma? Yes, yes I guess so. Oh what a lovely child you are. Now, where were we?
Life in America was quite different from what I had been used to. We lived in a row house in a small town in Massachusetts. Mother worked long hours at a textile mill, and I spent much of my time with the Sisters of our parish in the church basement. I have few memories of my hours spent there. I find that this aging brain has a way of discarding those kinds of unpleasantries.
On weekends I played with my puppy, Chiot, a name chosen to honor his Belgian/French origin, and helped mother with the chores. Ernest lived in a room nearby and was a regular visitor, except when he was traveling back and forth to the old country, or when he went down to Florida. Years went by, then war broke out in Europe and travel home for Ernest was impossible. I would fall asleep next to Chiot, listening to Ernest and Mother talk about the old country, about the farm . They were so worried that something might happen to their parents. The following year, America joined the fighting and Ernest enlisted. He would be gone for the next 3 years.
In the years after the war mother saved enough money for us to book passage back home. But then a terrible influenza epidemic broke out in Europe that was as devastating as the war. We got a letter from one of my aunts just two weeks before we were to depart. Grandfather had died in his sleep, and a few days later Grandmother too was gone. What horror Europe was experiencing; war then disease. Afraid of the sickness, my mother decided it was too dangerous to go back.
Ernest returned from the war and found a job at the mill where mother was a weaver. There he worked as a skilled machinist, fixing the looms and threaders. He worked steadily for several months until he could be tied down no longer. One afternoon he came by to tell us it was time for him to see a little more of this America we had come to. He took his savings, quit his job and the next day he was gone. A few months later he returned and told us all about the places he'd traveled, the things he'd seen. He was most excited when he told us about Florida.
‘The opportunities are everywhere down there,’ he said. ‘Hotels are opening up and they all need produce to feed their guests.’ Mother was smiling as if to say, here he goes again. But Ernest was serious and so taken with his dream that he didn't notice Mother's cynicism. ‘You see, the idea is to grow the vegetables like we've done for years in the old country, then instead of selling them at market, we sell directly to the hotels. There's no middleman and so the profit is greater.’ Mother just smiled.
‘What about a wife, Ernest,’ Mother kidded him as she finished darning the holes in his socks. ‘Everyone knows that you need a wife and children to run a farm. If not you'll end up worked to death.’ Ernest laughed.
‘You know that I'm waiting for Elisa to grow up. Then I'll marry her.’ He picked me up and swung me around, so that I was half frightened, half laughing. When he put me down I was embarrassed at what he had said, but secretly wished it could be true.
The next spring, Ernest heard that there was work on some of the large farms in western New York State. He said that it was just what he needed, that he was tired of the factories. He left
The next letter told about bareback riding on the big workhorses. Later in the summer, he wrote that he and Ruthie (now, he always referred to her as Ruthie) had tried to build a flying machine. As a matter of fact, they had actually gotten off the ground for about 10 seconds, he said. Mother looked over at me after this letter.
‘It seems that we're hearing a lot about this Ruthie. Don't you think? Maybe one of these days we'll be headed out to New York for a wedding.’
Ernest's letters came faithfully throughout the summer. Then in September, they came less often and in October, three weeks went by without a word. We were pretty sure it was because of harvest time, but I could see that Mother was getting worried. Funny, I didn't worry about Uncle Ernest. I just couldn't imagine anything hurting him.
In November, when we still hadn't heard, Mother said that she was taking off from work and we were getting on a train to find Ernest. The next day, I was hanging wash out in the front yard, when a model T came chugging towards the house. Chiot went out to meet this strange contraption barking and wagging his tail frantically. A tall woman stepped down from the car shaking her hair free from a bonnet, the kind they used to wear while driving. Her hair was bright red and fell like a shawl over her shoulders. I knew the woman I was staring at was Ruthie. Oh Julia, let me tell you, Ruthie was some beauty and her smile seemed to fill our whole yard. When Ernest got out from the driver’s side I raced to him and jumped into his arms. For a few moments Mother stood in the doorway trying to look angry with him for worrying us so. But when she could contain herself no longer, she too ran to embrace him.
‘Oh Ernest,’ she said, ‘ I was so worried. What if something had happened to you?’ Mother was sobbing as we started toward the house. I was still in Ernest's arms and turned my head so that my cheek was pressed against his.
Oh, darling Julia, this is difficult. Let me walk a little. It will do me good to get some blood circulating in these tired legs. My days now seem so long but the years, the years have flown away so quickly. Give me a moment and then I'll continue. Where did I stop? Oh yes. Ernest and Ruthie.
Over dinner they told us that they had married a few weeks before, packed up all their belongings and were off for Florida to grow vegetables and fruits to sell to the hotels. They had made the detour to come to see us so that we could meet Ruthie and so Ernest could discuss a business proposition.
‘Don't say anything now,’ he said, ‘but once we get things off the ground, we want you two to come down and help us out. I'll build a house for you next to ours, and we can all live and work together.’ I can still see his face as he planned our lives, trying to have all of us within his reach, much like Grandfather trying to keep us all around our little town in Belgium.
I had never seen Ernest so enthusiastic. It was because he was reaching his dream, darling Julia, and Mother and I would be part of it.
Ernest and Ruthie left two days later, and a few months after that we got a letter telling of the land they had bought and the crops they were planting. Ernest had been going around to the hotels and already had gotten commitments from four of the largest, each promising him business if he supplied the fruit and vegetables they needed.
For us, life in the mill town was getting better. Mother still worked long hours but I was old enough so that I didn’t have to stay with the nuns. I got a part-time job in the hospital as a nurses aide and was doing well in school. Ernest’s letters came like clockwork every month. The farm was doing well and in every letter Ernest asked when we were moving down with them. Mother was pretty well set in her job and I in school. But we did talk of making the move, perhaps when I finished high school.
The following year we got the news that we had all secretly been waiting for. I arrived home from school before mother so I read all of Ernest's letters first.
It was almost Thanksgiving, but it was a mild afternoon. I sat on a rocker on the front porch to learn the latest news. Ernest wrote that he was sorry that we hadn't heard from him in a while, and that they wouldn't be able to come up for Thanksgiving as they had planned, but that they had some special news. He hadn't told us earlier because Ruthie had been ill.
You see why it was so important my little princess. This precious jewel of our family, this child of the adventurers, the pioneers, the first of our family born in America, she was our future. For days after reading Ernest's letter, I put myself to sleep at night thinking of them, praying that someday Mother and I would go live with them and that someday I would have a man like Ernest to love me the way he loved Ruthie, and that I too would have a child like Julia.
Oh how painful this is, child. But only I am to blame. You have not asked for this tale. I can feel my pulse racing, now these many years later. Oh this ache, this horror. Now let me get myself together. There is so much more to tell, and you my darling are getting sleepy. I can see it in your eyes. How long can you amuse yourself with those rattles and bells and listen to this crumbling voice? But when I speak of Ernest and his family I never feel old. I feel alive with hope. That has been their lifelong legacy to me.
The following August, they came to visit and let me tell you, Julia was the center of all of our attention. Relatives came from Boston, Brockton, and Pawtucket to see Ernest and Ruthie, but most of all to see baby Julia. They left in early September, in time to plant the crops for the winter season.
We didn’t see them again for two years. But then we got a letter in late spring asking if they could spend the summer with us. Uncle Ernest said that Florida was just too hot to grow anything in July and August, and most of the hotels had few customers and so, little need for produce.
They arrived in mid-June and Ernest and Ruth got jobs at the mill. Since I had just finished high school and hadn't decided yet what I wanted to do with my life, Julia was my responsibility for the summer. I welcomed the excuse to stay home and play with her.
You should have seen us, darling. The child you are named for became a part of me. I dressed her in the morning, fed her breakfast, then took her to the park for the day. Oh how she loved the swings. She would stay on them for hours it seemed, always wanting to go higher, take more chances. We lived in close quarters that summer. Yet, the only arguments I can remember were when the paychecks came. Ernest and Ruth wanted to pay for everything. They told my mother that this was the time to save money. What if I wanted to go to college, or to become a nurse, they said. Ernest was always planting new ideas in my head. Yes, I remember thinking. Yes, I could become a nurse.
The weekend before they were to return to Florida, Mother and Ruthie planned a party. We invited our friends, mostly other immigrants from Belgium and relatives, made elaborate punches and rolled up the rugs. Mother said that it was high time we had a good old-fashioned party in our family. Mother and Ernest were in such a festive mood, they decided that as soon as someone entered the house one or the other would start them dancing. ‘That way we won't have to wait till late at night to get things rolling,’ said Ernest.
Ruth was with Julia tending to the food, when one of my sluggish, aged grumbling, great-aunts, who had come to America after the war, arrived at the door. Ernest welcomed her with a ceremonial embrace, bowed, then took her around the waist and twirled her onto the dance floor as I cranked up a Charleston. She protested at first, then laughed and laughed, her face getting redder and redder. But Ernest wouldn't let her sit down till the record was over. Meanwhile, Mother had taken one of the little boys who was trying to hide in the corner and to his great embarrassment, danced him next to Ernest and Auntie.
As more guests arrived, Mother and Ernest swept each to the middle of the floor as I cranked away at the handle of our old player. Julia would try to help, but she just wasn't strong enough yet, so we turned the handle together. Our party went on like that for hours. Then things settled down and our relatives started talking about the old country and who still remained over there and of course, the inevitable, who had died.
Later in the evening, I took Julia’s hand to get some punch. Then I heard the music start again. ‘Who could be doing my job?’ I thought. When I turned, I saw mother cranking away at the handle, a huge grin on her face and Ernest was dancing towards me, a lone dancer stalking a partner, me.
I cowered and tried to get away. But it was no use. He swept me into his arms and waltzed me out onto an empty dance floor, my relatives all laughing and applauding. He spun me around and for the first time I could remember, he didn't look at me or treat me as a child. I seemed to have made the transition in his eyes, for now he held me like a woman. I felt his shoulders and back, muscular and soaked with perspiration, his arm firmly around my waist. I was hesitant at first, but then caught the rhythm of the music and of Uncle Ernest as he gracefully guided me around the floor.
He was smiling at me and I was hypnotized by him, for I was barely aware of the shrieks around me or the mischievous laughter of Mother and Ruthie. Then suddenly, I felt
Everyone howled. But no one loved it more than baby Julia, who was rolling on the floor with laughter at the sight of her father's chaotic moves, for Ernest had turned these mischievous games of his wife and sister into an opportunity to entertain us all with acrobatics, and a dance of astounding skill and grace.
Ernest's dance was the highlight of the night. Soon guests were leaving and we were cleaning up. In the corner of the room Julia was cuddled against the wall sound asleep. I watched her and thought of the night when I was about her age and fell asleep waiting for Grandfather. I took her into my arms, hoping that she would feel the comfort and love I had felt those many years ago.
They left around the second week in September. There was plenty to be done in Florida to get ready for the winter crops, said Ernest. Mother and I stood together on the porch as their taxi pulled away from the house. We waved and called out to them, ‘Take care of each other. Write soon.’ Little Julia was in the rear window of the car waving back. We were trying to be cheerful, but I was crying. Mother took my hand, not for me, she told me later, but for her. She hugged me as if she feared something terrible was coming. They had been home for less than a month when the curse of that region came upon them. Hurricane.
What is it, Julia? Your eyes are closing, again. This night has been too much for you. But my story is almost done and then you will sleep in peace while I wrestle with the pain I have dug out of the caverns of my mind. But I am resolved that I will not be shielded from these feelings, for if I am, I am shielded from life itself.
Now, now the end, here, let me walk with you in my arms while I try to finish my story. What is it, my darling? You are restless. What has disturbed you? Perhaps just the lack of sleep, let me comfort you. Look, yes, you have the pale blue eyes of our family and the beautiful dark skin of your mother. You are part of the new America, the one born in us and reborn in our children. You, so easy to hold, my love. Look how you melt into these useless breasts. No, perhaps not so useless if you are able to find comfort nestled in them. They no longer have the milk to fill your belly, but perhaps they calm your soul. Yes, look. Already you are growing quiet.
How you need this holding, how I need to hold you. Oh Julia let me waltz you around this room. I will be your first dance partner. I will hold your tiny hand. My children won’t hold my hand. They think me foolish. But what am I to do, give up hand holding? Is holding hands reserved for the young? Don't I now, as I face the shadows, need a hand to hold more than ever? You need to be guided into this world, but I need the same as I leave - we the bookends of this generation. I do not fear this end. I don't understand it any more than I did when I was a younger woman. But I don't fear it any more than I fear sleep at night. It is what happens. But many times I feel that I want more in these years. I want it to be that when I feel love bursting from me, that I can throw my arms around my love and hug and kiss and not fear that I will be thought foolish. I want to be free to do as I did when I was a child, when I ran up to Grandfather to hug him and jump into his arms, or to be held by Uncle Ernest, to feel the stubble of their beards.
Oh child, forgive these digressions. Where were we? The hurricane, yes I was telling you about the hurricane. There were no warnings for hurricanes in those days. It was simply a storm that got worse and worse. Ships would be caught at sea and frequently lost. Buildings were washed away before they could be fortified, and people would lose their homes and sometimes their lives, to the seas or the winds.
When we first heard the news of the storm, we were frantic. It had come ashore just north of Miami, so that Ernest and his family would have gotten the worst of it. We tried calling, but it was no use. We wrote, but there was no response. Weeks went by and I pleaded with mother to let me go find them. But she refused. She told me later that she was so frightened of losing me, that she couldn't stand to have me out of her sight. She decided to wait one more week; then we'd
Two days before we were to leave, the letter came. Oh darling, how we fought not to believe those words. It couldn't have happened, not to Ernest.
The letter was from
The hurricane had caught them all unaware. Ernest fortified the house as best he could, but sometime in the night he realized it was no use. He told Ruthie to take Julia to higher ground where it would be safe, and that he would follow as soon as he braced the windows and gathered their valuables. But Ernest had misjudged how treacherous it was outside and by the time he had filled a knapsack and stepped out the back door, he knew he had made a tragic mistake. He had not gone ten steps when he was carried away by the floodwaters, and found himself struggling to keep his head above water. He remembered grabbing onto a tree branch and holding on for dear life, but nothing more of that terrible night. The next morning they found him unconscious and near death, still clinging to that branch.
When he came to, his neighbor wrote, he called out for Ruthie and Julia. He screamed and they had to hold him to his bed. His neighbor got together a search party. They found nothing that day, but the next morning, the neighbor's son spotted something in a ditch along the side of the road in back of the house. It was them. Ruth's arms were wrapped tightly around baby Julia, but her arms weren’t enough to protect that child. They had drowned not more than a hundred yards from their home, only a short distance from where Ernest had struggled in the dark for his own life.
They didn't tell Ernest right away, but by afternoon he could sense it and they had to tell him. When they finished, his neighbor wrote, Ernest turned away. He was weeping. Then he whispered, ‘I have lost everything. There is no more reason to live.’ He never spoke again, and the next day he too was dead.
Oh child, how beautifully you sleep in these shaking limbs of mine. Look, even my tears falling on your cheek do not wake you. Forgive me child, I too am weary now. This has been a draining evening. They asked that when you were asleep for the night that I put you in your crib. But I think that I will disobey them this time. For this night you may sleep here on my bed. Here I shall lie on the bed next to you so that I may watch you, my face only inches from yours. Sleep child. Now you reach for me and grasp my wrinkled finger. Hold it as if your life depended on it. Hold it and every time this tired heart pumps, it pumps my life into yours. Let me stroke your face so that someday you will recall my touch, the warm, loving touch of the past
Nick Ingoglia
March 2012