My timbers

If walls could talk, you would hear me pleading with you, to reconsider tearing out sections of me. As it is, you just carry on with your day… as of yet, oblivious to my appeal to your sensibilities. If only you knew what had happened here, you might look at me differently, adorn me more majestically, run your fingers over me, as if I were a precious lover.

Here, inside my sheltering walls, is where your great-grandmother lay, when she was only sixteen. She put her head back, against her pillow, looked up at me, and read his note, one more time. They were to meet, at midnight. Something she had never done before, and would never do again. Her father would have forbidden it, her mother would have fainted, if she’d known.

Her parents both knew the gentleman. He had been round the house, more than a few times. Everyone knew he was her beau. They’d been courting, for some time now, as was to be expected. They’d even sat in church together. They’d been betrothed for a year. They were waiting until he came back, from overseas, to get married. But everything had changed so quickly.

When they’d first met, there’d been no war raging, in Europe. And no thoughts of the U.S. ever joining it. They were carefree. It had taken a few years before he’d noticed her, in that way. Then, not too long after he’d noticed that she’d changed into a pretty young woman, he’d asked if he might walk her home from school one day - and they’d taken a detour, by the brook, into the fields…

The fields had felt good, all around them, as they sat down amongst its wildflowers, protecting them from sheltering eyes. She’d known that he was a good boy. And they hadn’t gone too far, like some she’d heard of did. Even still, she’d known they were being a bit scandalous. But he was a good boy, and a fine catch, and she cared for him. He was special. There was no one else like him. A good student, God-fearing, handsome, polite. Even her parents had liked him.

He was an honest fellow. He worked at his folks’ store, on weekends and after school, usually - but this day, he’d told his parents that he had something else he had to do… and they’d let him take time off of work, to go do it, no questions asked. Their family was just like that. A decent family – hardworking, but not greedy. They’d help out any customer in need, and had a few running-tabs that they’d forgiven, of those who just couldn’t afford to pay.

She and he had laid back, down amidst this soon-to-be her favourite patch of flowers – daisies, purple vetch, and bachelor’s buttons… They’d talked a while, between light kisses, as he’d fingered her hair and smoothed the collar on her dress, and run his hand along her side. He was a gentleman, of course, but it was unseemly that they should have been alone, unsupervised, in such a compromising position.

He hadn’t laid an unseeming finger on her – yet they’d both stolen small kisses that had become long kisses and perhaps had gone a bit too far. She knew that he was honest and, whatever happened, they would be married and she would be well taken care of. Their children would be well taken care of. But it hadn’t happened, the way they’d planned. He’d had to go overseas – after all - to serve.

She’d laid her head against the pillow, as if it were him – brushing the pillow case over her lips, as if it were his fingers, tracing her lips. She read his first letter to her, from the front lines:

My dearest Darling,

You are ever-present in my thoughts. I hope you are well.

You know that I am thinking of you, and looking forward to our life, together. Please, send my regards to your parents, younger brother, and sister.

I hope, I will be home soon. Life, here, is beyond description… but, I keep thinking of you, and that keeps my head on straight and fills my heart with hope.

The past four months have been nothing short of devastating. We have lost a very many men, and I consider myself fortunate, to be alive. (I think you must be my lucky charm.)

I have something, very important, to tell you. Under dire circumstances - a story which I will elaborate upon, as soon as I see you, again - I had to pawn my engagement ring. I am very sorry, but I am confident that you will not only understand my reasoning but be filled with pride that our love has saved lives, in a time of extreme need.

I pray that you are well. I live, for you.

Yours ‘til the end,

John

Jenny kissed her lips to the letter’s pages - written in a hastier form of his script than she had ever seen before. Tears welled in her eyes; as one fell upon the page, she hastily reached for her handkerchief, to wipe it, before it smudged the precious words.

She stared at the wallpaper, spread across me. She distracted her heart with the pretty flowers on my surface, letting her mind dance over the twists and turns of the leaves and vines that descended and ascended me, in perfect, measured harmony. She gazed at the floral border, with dark background, along my topmost edges. She reached out her hands, to touch me - remembering back to the day when she and John embraced inside the safe confines of outdoor petalled boundaries.

Her fingertips followed the folds of a petal - sending her heart and mind back to the time when John had picked the same-shaped flower and pinned it behind her ear, letting it cascade down over her hair as it bent forward. Her hand held me, and didn’t let me go, for a full minute. I could almost feel her heart racing, as she touched me – willing me to be John, if only for a moment.

A few months later, I was there, again, to comfort her, when she received yet another letter. This one was shorter, and without envelope.

Everyone at the post office had known. Everyone in the whole town had known, before long – many, before she had known, herself. Addressed to Mrs. J. Wetmore, it read:

‘Sergeant John Wetmore. Killed in action. Front lines, France.’

It was addressed to Mrs. John Wetmore – which had thrown off most of the town, including Jenny’s parents.

No one, in town, had known of their marriage. They hadn’t told a soul. Elopement was frowned upon, to say the least. And she’d been only sixteen.

There had been a very quick legal ceremony, in a neighbouring state, before he’d left. John had told Jenny that it was just so that she could collect any pension that might come, were anything to happen to him. And now it had.

All his own letters had been addressed to her maiden name, but this official notice…

She had hidden her face in her pillow, for days. She did not want to leave the comfort of my four walls. I’d tried to shield her from the noises downstairs, of people coming and going – to give their condolences and to express their shock over the news of the elopement.

People had seemed to skip over the fact that it was her husband who had died – for they hadn’t known that they’d even been married, just betrothed. And although it was tragic that he had been killed, of course, what was more shocking - I heard them say, in whispers through my timbers on the first floor - was that no one had known that she’d been married, at all… and that she’d even kept this fact from her own family (this last part of the conversation was often said, amongst the visitors themselves, when her parents were in the kitchen fetching more tea – or mentioned, in a sideways fashion, to her parents, in surprised tones).

She took all this, in stride - most likely, due to the numbness. She lay there, between my clean straight walls, looking up at my petalled surface, and wondering what their children would have looked like. Wishing that he were here with her, again, to straighten this whole thing out and prove it were not so. Wishing that they could take off, again, tonight, and just not come back to this reality.

And yet, I suspect that you would wonder, then, how it came to be that you were born – since Jenny’s lover went too early, to the Great Beyond? No, she was not pregnant, with child.

As time went on, the pain went from excruciating, to horrifying, to incredibly difficult, to numbing, to a point where she could again hear the birds in the trees, and feel the wind on her face.

Little by little, she began to see that Nature continued to bloom all around her, and that she must learn, somehow, to continue on, without him.

Although she had grown fonder and fonder of the flowers, on my walls - reliving, in my beauty, her moments of passion - her gaze began to continue out the window. And one day, she got up out of bed, to venture a look at the flowers, below her room. When she’d ventured out of doors again, to tend to those flowers, a few people, who’d been passing by, stopped to greet her. And before the end of the summer had passed, she had started to venture out into the town and had begun to mingle with the others who had been whispering behind her back, so many things that she hadn’t wanted to know or hear.

With much more time, and a few more years, Jenny learned that other men might make her smile again – even if they could never love her, in the same gentle way that John had. With much more time, Jenny began to feel as if she, herself, might be able to love again.

In her twenties, she learned that she needed to be cared for and looked after – because, back then, a young woman couldn’t always fend, very well, for herself without a man. Her parents encouraged her to accept the offer of anyone who would take her out and get her mind off of her sorrows. She didn’t want to live at-home, forever, and be a burden to her folks.

One day, she accepted the advances of a different sort of man – not quite a gentleman, rather a sort of imbalanced soul who sought attention in loud ways and couldn’t seem to attract the affections of any other lady. A bit begrudgingly at first, she went out with this man, Ralph - the choice of men being compromised, at best, with so many having gone to bigger towns for work, or to war. Your great-grandfather, Ralph, became her new beau.

And from Ralph, Jenny bore three sons and two daughters. Your father being her middle son, who most looked like him. And you have been lucky because the mental instability, that afflicted Ralph and two of his sons, has not touched you.

But Jenny suffered greatly from Ralph’s afflictions and addictions – and it was not without daily contemplation of her losses in life, that she made it through each day. John was always on her mind, and, always, his comparison, remained a stark reminder of what Life had stolen from her and the weak replacement she’d been given instead.

Jenny was a strong woman, who, despite all hardships, pulled through. And though she’d left the safety of her family’s house, for the instability of Ralph’s, she never forgot the dreams that she’d had within my walls nor the great moments that she’d had with John.

Jenny raised her children to be loving and kind, despite the emotional turmoil Ralph continually brought to their home. She brought their children up, as best she could, despite feeling at times as if her world were forever torn apart and she were caught in an emotional cyclone.

Each year until their passing, Jenny would visit John's parents, to reminisce and console, paying tribute to their good son and honouring the great love that they had shared by bestowing them with some flowers. And every year, when she visited her parents' home, she’d plant flowers underneath her former bedroom window, beside my strong walls.

Now, I belong to you. Through many twists and turns of fate, your future happiness is now within my walls, and my fate rests with you. I hope you will love me, as Jenny did. I will try my best to soothe and calm you, with the security of my beams and the decorations upon my surface. The flowers on the walls of Jenny’s bedroom are now somewhat faded, and may need to be refreshed. But I am still a good listener, and I can be a ‘looker’ again - as pleases you.

Refresh my surfaces with new coats of paint, or replace my wallpaper with more modern styles. You can even replace my lathes and plaster, for today’s drywall and crackfill. But, please consider saving a piece of my wallpaper, to frame somewhere, in remembrance of those sweet dreams and deep consolation that Jenny found when gazing upon my surface.

Please respect the age and wisdom of my timbers. If some are removed, please incorporate them, into the new design of your home. My timbers are the foundation of this house, and the very same that formed the shape of Jenny’s room and held her safely there within. It is I who bore witness to your great-grandmother’s tears and her longings for young John.

The energies of the past linger in the bones of my lumber - that stands as a testament to the longings of your dear great-grandmother… and to the memories of her one true love.