by Marie Davis & Margaret J. Hults
Grammatically speaking, this [is a bracket. Most people do not know how to use a bracket properly. That grammatical punctuation is just what Ellen looked like at seventeen. Her back was long and straight. A cheerful oval face with pleasant features carried a chin that jutted out a bit further than expected, which perfectly matched the other end — feet that were longer than expected. Between those two landmarks, was a thin, energetic young woman. Just like the punctuation she resembled, most people did not know how to use a beautiful young woman with a big chin and big feet properly. And Ellen, at only seventeen, had not yet learned what her correct usage was either.
Did you see Ellen in her twenties? Every year what stood out was her round belly. In ten years she had eleven babies, including one set of twins. First came John, then Mike, Jackie, Sara, Paula, Grace, followed by the twins Bryan and Eric . . . Oh wait! Was it Eric then Bryan? Well, can’t you imagine how difficult it was to keep track of their order? Living in this dilemma, by thirty Ellen was rattled and forced to label all her children on the forehead. As a young mother, Ellen questioned herself, how am I to manage with scores of children and the many years ahead? Will there ever be a day when all their heads are combed? Will I ever get all 110 fingers nails grime free? Does the laundry ever stop? When do I get a chance to sleep through an entire night? Will that rascal, my oldest daughter, ever grow out of her fascination with catching snakes? Bundled up life and body, for Ellen it all was the shape of a question mark. Did you see Ellen in her twenties?
Ellen’s daughter Sara, was stubborn—splendidly stubborn—and certainly not a scairdy-cat. At three-years-old Sara split her head open, deliberately falling down a flight of stairs just to prove she wasn’t a scairdy-cat. In first grade, five boys got black eyes thanks to her right-hook. Her eight-year-old summer, Sara set the neighborhood record for the most snakes caught, and the record for the most snakebites. That year, young mother Ellen was relieved when school started, a mother’s joy premature. From Franklin Elementary Sara had to be ambulanced to the emergency room three times. Once for the effect of gravity on a giant leap off the monkey bars, another time Sara snorted nearly twelve pints of milk out her nose in an attempt to win a lunchroom battle and the third time for non-stop pooping in her pants. Turns out chocolate laxatives are more than just chocolate. At twelve years old, thanks to chemo treatments, Sara drew nasty pictures on her baldhead. Finally, mother Ellen understood why God made her oldest daughter so difficult. Pain and misery were never able to penetrate her child’s tough shell. So, it was unexpected the day Sara died. Grief slumped Ellen’s shoulders. Humped over, she looked like a parenthesis. Ellen did not want Sara to become a parenthesis in life. “Oh yes, I have eleven children (one died).” Rounded back drug down by a heavy heart, Ellen never righted because life was never right again (without Sara).
Twenty-eight years later, Depression slipped its shadowy hand inside Ellen. It grabbed her head, pulling it forward, until her body bent over into the shape of a comma, left only with legs to walk. Depression. It was for the loss of friends like Merle Windburn, who fixed her children’s bicycles at his sporting goods store, and his wife Louise, the best bridge partner. Louise and Ellen were next-door neighbors for thirty-five years, bridesmaids at each other’s weddings, and had their first children only days apart. Just how many get-well casseroles and celebratory desserts passed between them was countless. Louise, a stroke victim, lay motionless in a nursing home for ten years. Eventually, Ellen stopped her weekly visits to see her friend. Even though she had legs that would take her there, her heart became too balled up to make such a journey.
A period is the end of a sentence. That is just how Ellen felt the day her husband died. They had nearly fifty years together. When he died, just like a period, she closed up entirely. True, she rolled along for a few more years, but it was also the end of her life.
The last time anyone saw Ellen she stretched out flat in her coffin — like a dash. A dash—that’s what Ellen believed was fitting for her life. She dashed to love her husband, she dashed to doll up their first home, dashed to have children, and dashed to take them to baseball games, ballet recitals, screeching violin practices. Ellen dashed through her children’s childhoods, dashed to college graduations, grandbabies’ births. With so many pleasant dashes behind her, stretched straight out in her coffin — Ellen dashed off to her next adventure.
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