Life: A Love Story

Dear Ruth Eimers,

My name is Teresa McNair, and I am Florence Greene’s neighbor and friend. I am writing with the sad news that Florence passed away two days ago, on the morning of July 1st. I found her sitting at her kitchen table dressed in a tweed suit, nylon stockings, and heels, and she had applied a fair amount of rouge to her cheeks. She also had a hat and gloves on the table next to her purse. The paramedic in the ambulance said it looked like she was intending to go somewhere.

I met Flo not long ago when she helped me to capture my runaway cat, and we quickly developed a deep friendship. I found her to be charmingly straightforward, cheerful, and full of what I can only call simple grace. I say “simple” not meaning grace without depth, but rather to differentiate it from a way of being that is perhaps a little elevated or self-aware. The grace I witnessed in Flo seemed not something she aspired to, but rather a natural part of her. Difficult as the world sometimes becomes for most of us, Flo seemed to hold an unalterable love and appreciation for it. She did not deny life’s sorrows, but she chose to focus more on its compensations. There was as well a guilelessness about her, and a giving quality that did not leave much room for self-absorption.

As you may know, Flo had been diagnosed with a cancer for which there was no cure, so in that sense she certainly was dressed up “intending to go somewhere.” Her attitude about the end of her life was philosophical; I believe she wondered about it more than she feared or grieved it. (Though she did once mention that she would miss apple pie made by someone who didn’t skimp on cinnamon, and the sound of children at play, especially when they thought no adults were listening.)

Flo told me she had willed her house and its contents to you—you’ll be hearing from her lawyer in a separate communication—and that she was writing the enclosed letter to let you know more about some of the things here. She said she also wanted to share some things about her life she felt were important to tell you, and asked that if she had not mailed this letter to you at the time of her demise, would I do so.

The letter is quite long, as you see, and I did not feel it was my place to read it. If, after reading it yourself, you have questions, I will try to answer them.

I’m not sure if Florence mentions this in her letter, but I am a death doula. In my work, I try to offer a grounding and consistent presence to people in uncertain times, and to assist them with the transition from life to death in as peaceful and mindful a way as possible. Sometimes people want help with clarification of medical terms, or someone to serve as intermediary in conversations with doctors or family members. Sometimes I am asked simply to sit close by clients in silence, in order to bear witness. I do not and cannot take away all suffering, but I hope to lessen it, and I try to teach clients to be open to new possibilities and perspectives, even or especially at the end of their lives—to understand how much living can be packed into a short amount of time, and to see that it is never too late for some very important realizations. In my time with Flo, though, I was the student, and it is not an overstatement to say that what I learned from her changed my life.

I will leave you now to Flo’s letter. I too have written more than I intended to. But then, that was Flo: showing you the value of taking some time. The poet Dorianne Laux said, “Any good poem is asking you simply to slow down.” In that respect, Flo was a poem.

This comes with heartfelt condolences, and with the hope that whatever words Flo has sent you will soften the blow of her leave-taking. I believe it would please her to think that was so.

Sincerely,

Teresa McNair

Two months earlier

Florence Greene sits up slowly, steadies herself at the edge of the bed, and regards the bright line of sunlight coming from beneath the shade. Another day. The wealth of it!

She walks over to the window and raises the shade to look out at her small and tidy front lawn, at her white fence lined with watercolor pansies. Aren’t they ever something, she thinks. A paintbox in petals. Here comes a young woman jogging down the street wearing shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt and a baseball cap, her ponytail coming out of a hole in the back of the cap and swinging like a metronome. She has those white plugs in her ears that Flo thinks makes people look like aliens. Three houses away, coming down the front steps, is a woman whom Flo has seen but not properly met; Flo doesn’t even know her name. She looks like she’s about fifty, and the expression on her face is always earnest and a little bit sad, rather like that of a child who’s been chastised and has vowed to do better. She’s walking quickly toward her car, parked on the street, carrying a large duffel bag over her shoulder. Flo has heard of people who go to private homes to do hair; maybe she’s one of those. It used to be that Flo knew all her neighbors, but the block has turned over, and most people keep to themselves. At night, if you look in their windows, mostly what you see are TV screens so big they remind Flo of drive-in movies.

Well, she must get to it. She dresses in a blue shift and sneakers, washes up in the hall bathroom, and makes her way downstairs and into the kitchen, where she measures out coffee for four cups. While it brews, she sits at the little round table where last night she put out a never-before-opened box of floral stationery and a blue ballpoint pen. After she has her raisin toast and coffee, she’ll begin. She wants to write to Ruthie, the woman who as a child grew up next door, and with whom Flo has kept in touch since Ruthie married and moved away. They don’t write often, but they write honestly; even when Ruthie was a little girl she had never cottoned much to small talk. When she was twelve years old, Ruthie had asked Flo, “Do we bare our souls to each other?” and Flo had answered, “I believe we do.”

“Fine, then,” Ruthie had said. “Because later on I have some important things to tell you.” She’d held up a finger in the air. “Important with a capital I.”

Now Flo thinks she has some Important things to tell Ruthie. Where to start is the thing. Flo has a sudden image of herself backing into the kitchen one hot summer day many years ago, her arms laden with tomatoes and flowers from the garden. Here she came, pushing through the screen door with her hind end, her husband, Terrence, sitting at the table with his newspaper and coffee, watching her. “Why don’t you try coming in frontwards?” he had asked, and she’d said, “This is just how I do.”

So then.

Dear Ruthie,

I only wish I’d have gotten a chicken to keep in the backyard, that’s what I’m thinking right now. I always did like chickens, from the time I was a little girl and first held a chick in my hand, light as air and peeping away, and I could hardly move from sheer delight, those little orange feet sticking out of a ball of fluff, you’d never think there was flesh and bones in there, seemed like those chicks were something you could wish on and blow away. But talking about chickens, for heaven’s sake, at a time like this! What I mean is, I have gotten a bad prognosis for a cancer that has reared up and taken off, and my doctor told me that I might want to put my affairs in order. When he told me, a blush crept into his face—bless his heart, he felt bad. I’m ninety-two, I told him, and patted his hand. Still, he said, and I had to agree with him there.

I hope this won’t make you too sad, Honey. I know you too are dealing with some bad news, I read your last letter about your planning to divorce. I have some things to say about that, too, but later.

I have about a month, maybe six weeks. Did you ever think that a little interval of time like two weeks could mean so much? But here comes the voice in my brain begging for those fourteen extra days I might be given. Begging! Even an old woman like me who can’t see good or walk far and whose very blood is humming with the going-home song, why I’m still ginned up for more time. I’ll tell you true, I would live a hundred lifetimes back-to-back if I could, but I can’t.

Oh, I always did hate that word “can’t.” I didn’t believe it. People would tell me you can’t do this, and you can’t do that, and it was like I had a barrier in my brain where in the front part I listened politely but behind the barrier I was thinking the hell you say. But I got to face facts now, and so here’s what, Ruthie.