Living Will

Josh sat down on the old wooden chair. It creaked a little under his solid frame but bore his weight stoically. His one remaining grandmother had chosen to move out of the farmhouse to move in with him and Debra. His twin uncles who ran the farm now had never married and thus had no-one to help look after their mother during the day when she might need a little assistance while they were out busy getting things done in the paddock. Josh, in his forties now and carrying a little more weight than he should was taking what he felt was a well-earned break after a couple of hours shifting some of the heavier items out to the van. Most of the stuff was staying of course but Grandma Lucy had insisted on taking her favourite leather armchair, some crockery, what had to be an antique pure ebony, glass-fronted display cabinet containing a multitude of family photographs and a record player she claimed still worked. Josh had taken the time for a quick cuppa downstairs before opting to tackle the monumental task of packing up all the old lady's library of books. Library was the right word Josh reckoned. The ceiling wasn't all that high up here in the attic. The highest point had to be just slightly above his own modest height of 175 cm. From the roof trees it sloped down sharply to a point only a couple of metres away where there was a single bed, from which presumably you could lay back and stare up at the faded blue paint overhead. There was a narrow cupboard for clothing and a small washstand but the rest of the wall space was taken up with floor to ceiling shelving covered with row upon row of books. Josh was sitting in the only chair with a couple of packing boxes at his feet. "Well," he thought, "better get to it."

Grandma Lucy certainly had some eclectic tastes he thought to himself as he began packing. There were cookbooks of course because his grandmother absolutely loved to cook, but there were also history books, romance novels, and all three anthologies of The Beatles. He filled one of the packing boxes, sealed it with tape and wrote 'attic library' on the top with a thick, black marking pen. He shuffled that box over to the door and began packing the next one. This one was mostly fishing magazines, one atlas, and a stack of old children's books. He reminisced briefly over a couple of the latter ones, thinking back to his childhood when his grandmother would occasionally read to him while they both sat in the comfy armchair. He would imagine himself as the brave hero fighting the pirate king, or the jungle explorer capturing photographs of rare exotic animals. Afterwards he would wake up in the bed he used at Grandma’s place. He would crawl out in the morning dragging his teddy bear with him. His grandmother would usually be sitting in a chair in front of the wood stove with a long fork in one hand making toast for everyone. Josh smiled at the memories and went back to packing.

Josh finished taping the lid on another box and checked the time. “Hang it,” he thought, “It's close to lunchtime.” The shelves were nearly empty. There was one item near the end that had piqued his interest. It was probably another book, but why did it appear to be wrapped in silk? I’ll ask grandma, he thought as he picked it up and set off carefully down the narrow staircase. He glanced briefly into the main living room from the staircase as he continued down to the ground floor where the kitchen and dining room was. The two top floors were polished wood but the ground floor was made up of ancient stone flags. This part of England was known for its Tudor style architecture and this particular farmhouse had possibly been a single story structure first before the two upper floors were added at a later period.

“Hi Grandma Lucy,” he called out as he entered the huge low-ceilinged room. The old lady was sitting in her armchair reading as usual. She looked up as Josh entered the room. “Hello Joshy,” she smiled back, “What do you have there?”

“Oh my,” she continued as he handed her the silk-wrapped bundle, “I haven’t thought about this in ages.”

“What is it Grandma Lucy?” Josh asked as he took a seat at the kitchen table.

Lucy didn’t reply immediately as she stared for a moment lost in memory. Then she carefully began unwrapping the beautiful blue silk. Inside was revealed an equally beautiful small, thick notebook, apparently bound in black leather decorated on the front with what appeared to be a heraldic design made up of gold leaf, ivory and small gemstones.

“Wow,” was all Josh could manage to get out at first. “What is it?” he asked after a while.

“No clue,” his grandmother replied. “It has been in the family for ages, but I can’t read it. I think maybe my great grandfather would sit and read it, but maybe he only looked at the pictures. Here, look.”

Josh dragged the wooden kitchen chair over to sit beside his grandmother as she opened up the book and started turning the pages. “Is that vellum?” he asked.

“I think so,” was his grandmother’s somewhat distant reply; she was casually leafing through the book. The first few pages appeared to be hand-drawn illustrations of various plants with what was probably a description of where to find it or what it was used for. Josh thought that the language might be old German and said so.

“Probably,” Lucy replied briefly, “Our family did come from there many years ago.” After a while the illustrations gave way to what appeared to be some kind of journal. Josh couldn’t read a word and neither could his grandmother so she closed up the mysterious black notebook and carefully wrapped it again in the blue silk binding.

“Here you go Joshy,” she said as she handed the bundle to him. “Of all my grandchildren you’ve always been the one most interested in reading and history. I’m giving away most of my things now rather than later. I’m sure this is something you’d love to find out more about. I’ll tell you what I can later, but right now I believe it’s lunchtime.

Josh’s uncles walked in from the mud room brushing their thick blonde hair with their fingers. They were both in their sixties but you wouldn’t know it from looking at them. Mid-forties maybe Josh would have guessed if he didn’t know. They were both tanned and fit from working hard in the sun all their lives. Uncle Stan was missing a tooth from where a horse had kicked him years ago and Uncle George’s hair was maybe a little more white than blonde but apart from that they were hard to tell apart by anyone who hadn’t grown up around them. Josh’s youngest daughter, Maria, nearly knocked Stan backwards as she came running from her stool next to Lucy’s armchair and leapt into his arms giving him a big kiss on the cheek. His eldest daughter Susan reached her Great-Uncle George a few seconds later giving him an equally big hug and kiss on the cheek. Josh was happy that Maria at 11 was still small enough (but getting taller rapidly this year it seemed) to enjoy the running jump. She did that with practically every member of the family she figured could take the impact. Susan had never gone in for the flying leap but was definitely a hugger. Josh’s uncles were a little taller than him, maybe 180 or 182 centimeters? He wasn’t sure and had never asked, such things didn’t really matter to him. His own parents were both the exact same height as near as he could tell at 177 centimeters each. Stan put Maria down and the girls swapped places for another hug. Josh’s older sons, Michael at 19 and Samuel at 17 both waved from where they were already seated at the table but Daniel, Susan’s twin at 14 opted to get up and join in for a group hug before returning to his seat.

Josh grinned over at his wife before they all sat down for dinner. Uncle Stan said grace in his soft tenor before they all tucked in. It was typical farmhouse fare. Debra and Grandma Lucy and Samuel had prepared baked squash, deep-fried potatoes, peas, carrots, onions and plenty of mildly spiced chicken for everyone.

There was plenty of chatter over the meal about the packing, what was happening out on the farm and especially about the mysterious black notebook which Josh passed around.

Uncle Stan commented, “Tell you what Josh, how about you take this with you next time you go into the city. There’s someone there what sells antiquarian books. Maybe she knows about it.”

“Good idea,” Josh replied, “I’ll do that.”

They finished packing everything into the van Josh had hired later on that afternoon and opted to stay overnight at the farmhouse. Early the next morning after a breakfast of fried eggs, tomatoes, beans and toast the family made the short drive to their place and began the process of unpacking and getting Grandma Lucy settled into the downstairs study they had converted into a small bedroom for her just off the living room. They finished unpacking by late afternoon. Josh and Michael decided to make a special trip to the bookstore with Maria tagging along who expressed the hope that they might bring back ice-cream with them and she wanted to choose her flavour.

A tall woman with neat black hair done up in a bun greeted them as they entered the bookstore. Josh pegged her to be in her late thirties at a guess. She was wearing a gold sweater and blue jeans. Josh began unwrapping the book and explaining what little he knew of its history. Once he had it unwrapped he passed it into the lady’s eager hands.

The lady perused the book carefully for some time, pulling a magnifying glass from her back pocket to look closer at various items. “Oh my,” she breathed after having checked everything out carefully.

“Oh sorry,” She continued, “Hello, my name is Karen.”

“Josh,” he replied, “and these are two of my children, Michael and Maria.”

“Pleased to meet all of you. Josh, what you have here is in fact written in Old German as you guessed, and appears to be a treatise on various plants. The other, more recent entries are in fact in Afrikaans, at least I think it is but I can’t be sure since I don’t speak that language, but it does look a lot like it. I have an idea if you would be interested?”

“Shoot,” said Josh.

“Come back here in about 2 weeks time and come with me to the Antique Roadshow. They will be in town all that day filming. Surely someone there will be able to tell you more.”

Josh readily agreed and they all headed for home, making sure to pick up ice-cream for everyone, especially Maria’s peppermint choc chip.

The day arrived with them all travelling in 2 vehicles to get there. The book expert greeted them and was just as fascinated with the notebook as Karen had been. He carefully perused the pages and then gave his pronouncement.

“Sir, what you have here is truly remarkable. The actual book is older than the binding and the binding dates back to the 18th century as you can see from the bookbinder’s stamp here.” He pointed. “If I am not mistaken this is Baumgarten’s work, although not in his usual style. If you were to sell this book at a collectors’ auction you could easily fetch in excess of fifteen thousand pounds for it.”