Amelia wore her own hand-sewn
cotton aprons that tied simply around her elder expanded waistline. The white ruffles added some dimension and
bulk to the otherwise two-dimensional frontal wrap. Floral, mostly—pale colours and large print
that somehow represented the utility and beauty of her aesthetic senses.
The kitchen was her center,
it appeared—and so it was in her small stuccoed Edmonton home that sat just one
house over from the bus route and stop that took her to Kresges and Woolworths
for browsing and trinket purchases—not-to-speak of her red and green and the
myriad of other colours her miniature hard candy—sitting, once
purchased and safely stashed in her home—in little dishes placed strategically
on every flat surface in every room—even on the upper surface of the oven.
Amelia’s teeth were false—no
doubt from her daily habit of sucking on her little red and multicoloured
candies.
Her budgie bird lived in the
kitchen. Amelia talked to her non-stop
and at times it would whistle and talk back eliciting a sweet grandmother smile
set upon her lips—a satisfaction that said “well done Amelia. You taught this
little bird something in which you, too, can delight.”
For her, the kitchen was
practical and very little used—albeit scrambled eggs, day-after-day for husband
Franklin when he was alive, and pot roast stews, otherwise. Iceberg lettuce and mayo didn’t require
preparation and the relationship to contents behind cabinet doors seemed of
little importance to her.
The labelless tin can with rusting
nail holes in the bottom, which sat in a beige and brown rimmed stoneware dish
under the left-handed side of kitchen sink plumbing, was full of bar soap tailings
that she saved, grabbed and rinsed under the faucet, shaking gently to release
soap suds into her sink when she daily washed her few dishes. The stamp of scarcity imposed by
government-issued coupon-rationing booklets during the World Wars and economic
depressions made its way into her habits and choices well beyond necessity.
Franklin went to the doctor
one day and came back with a medical pronouncement that sent him
chesterfield-bound for the next twenty years until his death. No one else witnessed this prognosis, but
took what he said to be true--and neither questioned it nor challenged Frank,
even well into his second decade of lying prone.
He was a rough old geyser
who snarked and barked, but behind this, was a timid man who might just have
been afraid--afraid of life, afraid of love, afraid of death. His sailor language and drunken sprees during
summer and Christmas family gatherings sent the children fleeing to the muffling
shoulders and armpits of mothers who collected them together as if collecting
scattering free-flying leaves in an ocean gale--and safely behind closed doors
in hopes of protecting them from the vulgarities to which they were subjected
well before their tender ears could process such face-slapping language and
behaviour.
On the off-seasons, when
Frank was lying still as a corpse on his sofa, and not the vulgar mouth raging against
the world, visiting grandchildren were coaxed into the living room to say
“hello” to this unapproachably wispy gray-haired man. A stubbly face, unshaven and visually rough, clad
in fine woolen plaid Pendleton shirts and pants that draped loosely over his thin
long frame, Frank laid waiting and still—waiting and still for what always remained
a mystery—perhaps for the grandchild who dared approach this man who was supposed
to love them, and shower them with gentleness like their grandmother’s kisses,
hugs, candies, and warm duvets--or at least this grandfather’s version of love.
Against better judgment, if
they could muster up the courage to approach him sideways, arms protecting
their slight body, breath sucked inwardly, shaking, sliding quietly toward the
stilled figure, hopefully without disturbance, and into the presence of this
wisp of a man whose bite could send them running, crying back into the arms of
their grandmother--at their grandmother’s urging--as if the behind-the-curtain
director for this play called “life” could somehow entice them to bear the
hardship that ultimately would crack the nut and reveal the sweet meat for
these innocents to taste.
Back yet again, after his bullying
response to the hesitant child’s presence and quivering voice, he would then shift-on-a-dime
as if their own courage to return--to withstand his puffer fish rejection and
gruffness was the key to Frank’s heart–-to his need to feel loved--so wild, raw
and vulnerable that he had to test even the innocent. Their courage, perhaps the key to assuring
his acceptability in their life as they weathered this--his protective facade fell
away as smoothly and effortlessly through the child’s ability to withstand his
coarseness—like the rock wall that gave way at Ali Baba’s utterance, “open sesame.”
Or when Merlin set the sword in the
stone and King Uther Pendragon’s son, Arthur, pulled it simply from its unrelenting grip.
Perhaps his own need to be
embraced for all who he was by someone so young, allowed him to release himself
from his demons in these moments fully enough to connect deeply with his own
vulnerability, and therefore, his love—and curiosity. From
that moment forward, conversation with that child as if longtime friends, flowed
with laughter, teasing and joyful companionship.
The kitchen, though, was
Amelia’s practical, functional room, and with Franklin in the living room, this
left her a place. Her place. And Frank’s was his bedroom and living
room. Amelia found her kitchen a passage
way between her outdoors—a garden, flowers and sunshine—a go between from the
basement lower apartment where she sometimes had a tenant, and where her Agatha
Cristy books lined a shelf over the bathroom toilet and where feather
comforters and soft over-stuffed chesterfields and sweet-smelling linens were
kept—and the upstairs living room and two match box-sized bedrooms that converged
at the hallway to the kitchen, defined the kitchen’s core purpose of flow ever
more tightly to its central purpose in her life.
Everything converged
here—culinary concoctions, conversation and intentions. It was the center of her labyrinth through
which she walked, daily, inviting her family to the heart and soul of her
life. And she lived it well--along with her
husband, Franklin, who died of old age in 1971, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Amelia passed of grief, the autumn 1986.
Kat
24 February 2015
