Whatever you're facing...
Heaven Can Begin Now
Cecily
About Mea's death I will write when I come to consider the heaven that awaits us beyond this
life. The rest of her earthly journey is swiftly told. The year John and I married, her
granddaughter, Cecily, was born, the child of her son, Richard's, short-lived marriage. Mea
befriended his ex-wife and adored the little girl. As Cecily grew older, I watched the
destructive pattern repeat itself. Cecily's mother didn't understand this exceptional child.
The girl had refined instincts that Mea must defend against the commonplace influences of her
home.
John and I tried in vain to show Mea what she was doing. Cautions were powerless against
those love-starved early years. The sad drama was replayed. Mea gripped her granddaughter as
she had the wax-faced doll, and forfeited the relationship with both mother and child.
Imperfect Image
In Chappaqua Mea continued to be a cherished visitor, our three children looking forward to
her coming as eagerly as my brother and sister and I had. Then at eighty-four, following a
stroke that robbed her of speech, Mea entered Westchester County's home for the aged.
By then our children were grown and married, and writing assignments were keeping John and me
on the road. But as often as I could, I would follow the chlorine-scented hallways to the ward where Mea's bed was the second on the left. In warm weather I would wheel her outside, otherwise to a corner of the Day Room, where I would hold her hand and converse for us both.
As one, two, three speechless years passed, I'd find her more and more often asleep. I'd sit
by her bed, thinking about her life from orphanage to
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