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Mrs. Stine
who lived down our street was a plain woman and always kind soft-spoken, gentle in her own subtle way Mrs. Stine gave patient violin lessons for very little money to the very young and unaccomplished she played the violin in the small town community orchestra for all the years she lived of her life in Fargo once upon a time Mrs. Stine possessed three children who attended grade school she lived with a very stern husband in a fine sprawling ranch house in a quieter, uneventful middle-class neighborhood one winter afternoon she returned home earlier than usual from one of her patient violin lessons to find her quiet home emptied of her three children, one stern husband, and all they owned I can imagine her reaction perhaps she fainted dead away or fell crying in a heap with no chair to keep her from collapsing onto the bare, formerly carpeted floor all the furnihings gone her three children gone and blurred visions of her stern husband echoing in her aching head his fingers a-wagging his voice raised and rising again and again the husband who had been the town Rabbi the pillar of her community one who'd now whisked away her three overly-polite children who, I imagined, rarely, if ever, made their Father angry always doing as they were told however, the truth was I never saw her publicly shed a single tear nor any hanging of her small head in shame I wouldn't have blamed her if she had gone mad made a public display of her grief flailing her arms about like one who'd like to fly away from so much grief and shame but she never did she wore her inherited shabbiness of circumstance in other more subtler ways she seemed to wear the same coat for most of her days the same clothing was layered for small comfort to hide the wear and holes for years and she lived in a less than modest two room dank basement apartment damp cold in the winter to make up for the compromise of coolness she may have relished during the steamier North Dakota summers Mrs. Stine was our long-standing holiday dinner guest all those years she wore her tired smile as someone would wear a newly purchased outfit I think she wore her cheerfulness to ingratiate herself into our company so greatly she feared abandonment her smile so much a constant costume so she'd not have to be so alone I know for a fact she did not see any of her children again until they were nearly fully grown to early adulthood more than eleven years later she brought her daughter Jessie to meet me again at the store where I worked Mrs. Stine playing her best well-acted role yet the Sainted Mother who had never experienced abandonment how well she did her best to give no evidence of ever being bereft at being forgotten, penniless, childless and alone in a community which only valued status, children and wifely accomplishments what had they left her but small stubborn pride and a will to survive a waif, a wisp in the high prairie winds of North Dakota she ought to have brought her violin instead of bringing her daughter to the vintage store where I worked her playing had become so beautiful and poignant I took no pleasure in meeting her haughty daughter who many years before had been my childhood nemesis my own personal bully with age the daughter had become plain and unremarkable but Mrs. Stine never understood real ugliness she reintroduced her daughter as if the two of us had been friends always it was important, after all, for Mrs. Stine for me to like Jessica I embraced Mrs. Stine warmly but only coolly acknowledged her daughter I couldn't help myself how many times had my family welcomed Mrs. Stine to our holiday dinner table I knew all too well her daughter was only passing through again her Mother, a temporary obligation I looked right through Jessica who realized I recognized her ruse and blushed amber red how do people obliterate a family member's memory as if they never existed nor had any former association I could only imagine how Mrs. Stine must have been forced to live in a kind of protective amnesiac's world how else could she have hid her pain and given all those patient violin lessons was this the reason why she played her violin so beautifully so poignantly Mrs. Stine, isn't it time, you were remembered, immortalized in all of your pained and patient beauty? (for those who are wondering, this is not fictional, but all too true.) MARCH SIXTEENTH 2017/ 11;12AM TIME AND DATE STAMPED LEGAL COPYRIGHT FOR THIS WORK/POEM AND ALSO BY THIS AUTHOR MELISSA A HOWELLS/AND ALSO FOR THIS LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-WORLD Vote for this poem |
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