Eighty-Year Atonement

The year was 2031, and the little town of Eston, Saskatchewan, despite its penchant for gossip and minding everyone's business but its own, knew nothing of the momentousness of this day, the day when she would reveal to the young, aspiring journalist the hitherto unknown story of her life. She was now 102 years, but she could remember with absolute precision and clarity the day that her life story had been cast. It was precisely eighty years ago on this very date-when she was a fresh-faced, gorgeous twenty-two-year-old - that her fiance had careened down the precipitous slope of a back-road in the Saskatchewan badlands, and left her with a $20,000 life insurance policy. Now she was about to reveal to a young journalist her true account, the story of a life-long spinster who had never replace the love of her life whom she had so tragically lost.

She anticipated with weary tolerance and a somewhat wry sense of humor the series of banal topics that he would pursue in his interview and the unanticipated responses that she would fashion for him. Her reveries were interrupted by a brisk knock on the door. She opened the door to encounter he young journalist who had come to interview her. "He can't be more than twenty-five or twenty-six," she thought, "and how is he going to have any idea of what motivates the thought-system of a 102 year-old spinster?" She glimpsed over his shoulder the fuzz of the ubiquitous cottonwood poplar blowing in the wind, and it gave her heart and mind a dark moment.

"Hi," said the young man, "I'm Luke Harris, and I believe the " Kindersley Klipper " has notified you that I would be coming to interview you. I hope that this is a good time for you, and I'm sure you will have a fascinating story for me."

"Yes, I've agreed to this interview, if that's what you mean."

"Fine, Lets get started. To begin with I believe that you are 102 years old and that today marks the eightieth anniversary of the death of your fiance. It seems a bit morbid to bring that up, but it is an item that has great story interest. I note that you have never re-married, and I can't help but wonder if you still devote your life to his memory."

"I suppose I do. Yes, I suppose I do."

"I also heard that your fiance left you a $20,000 life insurance policy. Is that true?"

"Yes, that's a fact and I suppose that your readers would like to know whether that goes any ways towards softening the blow of losing a loved one, do you imagine?"

"I do believe that might be a rather interesting aspect of your life story. Are you comfortable discussing this?"

The old lady suddenly seemed animated in a way that the young journalist had not expected. "Young man," said she," I can see that you are ambitious in the same way that I once was ambitious - capable of dreaming about what you might do with a wind-fall, a sudden infusion of great wealth. If you publish the answers I have been giving, you may be the toast of the "Kindersley Klipper Newspaper" room for a few weeks, but you will hardly be rich and famous. On the other hand if you let me tell my true account in my own way, you may just hit the jackpot. Are you interested?"

"Fire away!"

O.K. How should I begin? In 1951 I was twenty-two years old

and I was full of dreams about what I could do if I had lots

of money. I was also being courted by one of the more eligible

bachelors of the town, but somehow the name "Hank" didn't

seem to fit with my romantic conception of who my life-mate

would be. Besides that, I was physically beautiful, gaga about

Elvis Presley and absolutely obsessed with the idea of being rich.

That's why Hank and I discussed life insurance a bit more than

most lovers would. I justified my tampering with the brakes on

his truck - oh I forgot to mention tha despite my romantic turn of

mind an my greed for money, I was mechanically capable - with the

notion that Hank did not really love me. I believed he was simply

enamored of my "good looks". Anyway, when they pulled Hank's

body out of that truck, they found a little black notebook in which

he had written:

Darling Elisha,

I have come to realise through our many discussions

of life insurance that our love is not meant to be, though

my obsession with you is incurable. So I leave to you a

$20,000 life insurance policy should anything happen to

me and a word of advice (given with a sad heart) worth

more than money:

"If you can learn to be happy with what you have, you will never be despondent about what you don't have. One may as well be looking for a diamond up a goshawk's ass as pinning hopes of happiness on dreams of hard cash "

"When I read that note I knew that Hank had a true love for me, and I was suffused with guilt. Over the years, I donated all my ill-gotten gains to various charities, eventually gaining happiness in the blessing and grace of Hank's forgiveness that poured from the heavens. So now you have the true story, and I tell you, not to expiate guilt but to enrich you! "

Luke left that interview a somewhat-troubled but changed man. About half way home he suffered a brain aneurism, but before passing he wrote in a black notebook:

" Dearest Nora,

I have nothing to leave you but my love and a thought to live by!"

'If you can learn to be happy with what you have, you will never

be despondent about what you do not have. One is just as well

off looking for a diamond up a goshawk's ass as pinning all ones

hopes on a dream of hard cash.'