A Gift
by Michael Lloyd Gregory with art by Chris Boyd
Loyd’s grandmother lay dying. Dying atop the feather mattress in the iron frame that had been moved to the front room so she could take to her bed. Loyd understood that when a person took to their bed it meant they were done living. Nothing left to do but wait and hope they went to the right place. Grandma had survived so much in her life: losing a baby to the Spanish Flu, raising four children in poverty, and most importantly for people of her generation, surviving the Great Depression. But she wasn’t going to survive high blood pressure.
The front room of his grandma’s house was familiar to Loyd. Grandma was his dad’s mother and he adored her. For the first years of Loyd’s life, they made the trip down to see her nearly every Sunday. Loyd’s dad worked six days a week hanging sheetrock in the city, so Sundays were the only day they could go. They would head out at 3 A.M, Loyd asleep in the bed his dad fabricated to fit the back seat of their Midnight Blue ’49 New Yorker. A bag of striped peanut butter bars was in the glovebox in case someone needed a snack. His mom and dad took turns driving to the farm, finally turning down the gravel road not too far past Sim’s Corner.
After spending the day at the farm, Loyd’s family would return home to the city in the dark of night. Loyd was supposed to sleep most of the way home so he would be ready for school the next day, but he couldn’t stop looking at the night sky from the back window until he would fall asleep. He always tried to stay awake at least long enough to catch a glimpse of the star atop the bridge outside Chetopa at Christmas time. The rest of the year he looked to see if someone had accidentally left it on.
Grandma’s front room was furnished with antiques. At the time, they might not have been old enough to call antiques except maybe for the collection of carnival glass. In Loyd’s mind, Grandma and Grandpa were definitely antiques: Grandpa with his obvious glass eye, never smiling, and Grandma, with both eyes, rarely smiling. In reality, they were about the same age Loyd is today, but life for them had been hard.
Civil War cannonballs from the nearby Pea Ridge battlefield held open the twin front doors, one for entering the front room and the other to enter the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen was a side door with a huge step down into the yard. Just inside that door was a small table with a chipped basin and ewer.
One bed remained in the dark bedroom, a brass one. The decorative ball knobs could be removed and the posts were filled with items secreted there by mischievous grandkids. The walls featured only a matched set of sepia portraits in heavy, dark frames with convex glass. Loyd never could remember who was in those pictures.
The death vigil was well under way when Loyd arrived with his mom and dad. Loyd’s dad went right to her bedside and took Grandma’s hand. She looked barely alive under a quilt she had made herself, but was glad to see her son.
Grandma had an older son named Billy. Billy was already in Heaven, and she told Loyd’s dad she wasn’t going to go to Heaven herself until Billy said everything was ready. Loyd’s mom did not want him to see Grandma die, so she asked a relative to take Loyd for a walk in the woods to keep him away for a while.
Uncle Art and Loyd walked a deer path through the woods across the road. Art described many of the plants they encountered. Presently, they saw a small pink flower growing up from the forest floor. Uncle Art told Loyd that particular wildflower was his grandma’s favorite. Loyd wanted to pick it, but Uncle Art said to leave it for Grandma.
Although they were gone for what seemed like a long time, Grandma was still alive when they returned to the house. Loyd entered through the kitchen door and stood by his mom, close to the counter where a gigantic hand pump drew water from the well house into the sink.
It seemed as though the crowd grew while they were gone. The preacher and his wife had arrived along with more relatives. Grandma spoke one more time before the Death Rattle began. She said, “Billy says everything is ready for me.”
She spoke no more and in a short time her body became very still. Still as the morning after a big snow.
Loyd watched as a bright light escaped from her body through the quilt and ascended straight up beyond the ceiling. The shape of the light reminded Loyd of a tiny person made of fire. He immediately turned to his mom and asked her about the light, but she hadn’t seen it. Loyd kept trying to talk about it to the people around him but his mom told him to stop. He was mistaken. He hadn’t seen anything.
Uncle Art took Loyd’s hand and led him back out of the house. Loyd asked if he could go get the pink flower in the woods and give it to Grandma. They crossed the road and walked the exact same deer path in search of the bloom, but the flower was gone. Only the leaves at the base of the plant remained. Loyd started to cry. Uncle Art crouched down so his face was level with the boy’s and told him, “Your grandma loved that flower so much she picked it on her way to Heaven.”
Things settled down and most people left, their current duties as family and friends completed. Loyd’s mom helped some of the other ladies wash Grandma’s frail remains while the preacher’s wife took care of him. She kept him occupied by teaching him how to make Braille letters using a needle poked through the bottom of a Kleenex box. They wrote Loyd’s name, some numbers, and the word Hello.
The preacher’s wife spoke to Loyd in such a way he felt reassured, so he decided to try one more time to relate the story of seeing Grandma’s light. She told Loyd to never let anyone convince him he didn’t see it. In the calmest manner she added, “I saw it, too.”
Loyd continues to see the light in his dreams once in a while. He later found out his Aunt Jane had seen it that day, as well. She was glad to know Loyd had received a Gift. Their family had a long history of seeing things other people couldn’t.
The trips to and from Grandma and Grandpa’s place occupy a special place in Loyd’s heart. He still loves the night sky and made his own Star of Chetopa he lights every Christmas season.
Loyd grew to understand what he saw was Grandma’s spirit leaving her body that day. He’s never again witnessed a death, but figures if he does the magic may very well happen again.
He’s ready.
