My Grandma Wheeler went by her middle name, Fay. I remember visiting her tiny home in Ririe, Idaho long after she was widowed. In fact, she was widowed before I was even born. I remember her visiting us in California and Michigan and Pennsylvania, and what is predominant in my mind is how she kept so busy sweeping and cleaning. My parents left Idaho as a young couple, so I didn't grow up around relatives. I didn't get to know my Grandma Wheeler really well, but I know I loved her. Until my mother passed away a few years ago, Grandma and Grandpa's posterity held annual family reunions at the ranch where they spent their summers, not far from Ririe. When my husband and I moved back to the lower 48, we started attending the reunions regularly. That was really good for me - feeling my grandparents' and others' presence. My Grandma was born in the very late 1800s. (Passage of time is so ethereal.) She lived such a different life than I did. I bought burial plots in the Ririe Cemetery a couple of years ago, and the way I've left instructions for my posterity to find my headstone, is to start at Grandpa & Grandma Wheelers, then walk straight away toward the next road, and you'll land on me. I'm glad I have that connection to them. Four years ago when I was finishing up school at BYUI, I was in a poetry class. That was waaaay out of my comfort zone. I was required to write a Sestina. They're somewhat complicated, but when I decided to write about Grandma's life, it just flowed. I felt close to Grandma when I wrote it, and I feel that today, as I'm posting this:
Grandma Wheeler
"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,"
was what I always said when something sad
happened in my life.
I was just five when my clothing caught fire.
They heard my screams and saved me.
Decades later, when my husband caught fire, I couldn't help.
Our children were grown; I was alone. No one to help
me shake the sadness and send the despair away.
"Write your life story," my grandchildren asked of me.
I dictated, they wrote. Passage of time didn't erase the sad.
I remembered to them the days when we'd warm ourselves by fire
and cool ourselves in the canal. It was a simple life.
I recalled each birth, approaching death to give life.
Those days we'd call on a friend or a relative to help.
No ether or liquor to stop the pain, it felt like fire
and then relief. Eleven times they sent my husband away
while I pushed through the pain. Him never knowing if I would be sad
or thrilled upon his return. But the Lord has given to me.
So much loss in the horse and buggy days. Me?
My loss came not in childbirth. It was after giving life.
First was Everett. All three children terribly sick. I had never been so sad
as when they took his body but I couldn't help.
My other babies needed me. I couldn't' go away.
My heart hurt so badly I couldn't cry. Cold fire.
Next was Thelma, just one month old. The summer night warm as fire,
Etsel and I took the baby with us to church. She was bundled close to me
in the buggy. I didn't know until we arrived that her spirit had gone away.
Oh, how could He take my baby? She had only begun her life.
I spoke with a choke, "Etsel, I am so sad."
Releasing Thelma nearly killed me. I prayed for help.
Little Wendel was four when he jumped on his daddy's combine to help.
He fell and was crushed. Etsel carried Everett's limp body, fire
in his soul as he ran to our home. Heartbroken. Sad.
"Oh Lord!" I prayed, "Give peace to us, to me."
"The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away,"
I heard. Did he really require one more life?
"Blessed be the name of the Lord." In death and in life
I praise Him. He is my Savior, my Joy, my Help.
We carried each other, Etsel and I. Until he, too, went away.
He was caring for our family when his clothes caught fire.
No one could save him. Not the Lord, not me.
My recollections bring it all back: the gifts, the hardship, the sad.
That's the story of life. Binary experiences, like ice and fire.
What I do with my pain is up to me. But always, I'll seek the Lord's help.
Blessed be His name, even when I'm sad: "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away."
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