5. Clem November 21, 1887
Dearest Mother,
I know that you can’t come to us, but I hope that you might find a way, just once.
Perhaps in the middle of the night, when the enchanter is sleeping?
Can you get away then? Even if only briefly, to say good-bye, for I don’t think Father will be with us much longer.
He spends every ounce of energy he has making arrangements for me and Rosetta.
He is consumed with a past he has lost and a future he will not live to see.
Sometimes, for brief moments, I don’t dread his death, Mother. Instead, I think that death will be a mercy for him. He is in such agony. He knows he will not be joining you in the spirit realm, and it fills him with despair.
I hadn’t looked at them for more than two years, but today I looked at the letters you wrote me before passing into the realm.
You are so good and kind to me in them, so steady in your wisdom, that I hoped I would find something there to cast light on the final days, something that would help Father.
I am astonished now at how calm you were.
Or how calm you sounded, perhaps for my benefit.
I decided to read Father the portion about the handkerchief tree, for it has always made me smile.
“That day, I had decided expressly to visit the handkerchief tree at the public park, and the breeze was perfect, causing the handkerchief blooms to fall, fluttering, to the ground. A young man with a trim beard and a twinkle in his eye walked up to me, picked up one of the blooms, and held it out to me in the palm of his hand: ‘I believe you may have dropped this, miss,’ he said. ‘Oh, it is not mine,’ I said, playing along but not to be taken in so easily. ‘Perhaps it is yours?’ Another man would have been flummoxed, but he looked at the bloom appreciatively and then proceeded to pat his forehead with it, as if wiping away beads of sweat. He was so gently humorous that I liked him at once. That is your father in a nutshell. That is how we met.”
Do you remember writing this for me? Do you remember that gently humorous man?
He did chuckle a little at the story, which he said he had not thought of for a long time. It did not cheer him, exactly, but his agony was replaced with something more like melancholy—for a little while, at least.
If he could only see you before he goes. Please find a way to come to us, just once, so he might be able to leave this world in peace.
Your loving,
Clem