Dance of Thankfulness PART 2

Here's the end of Lizzy's story! Hope you're having a blessed day. Grammy-Sue

Lizzy smiled at the notion that she was beautiful to the Almighty One. In her smile was the acceptance that even though she was eighty-six, her work on earth was not yet over.

She stood slowly, and went to the bank of river Hurry. Of course the maps didn’t label it such, but as a youngster it seemed to Lizzy that the river ran through her world in an awful hurry. As she grew she noticed that Hurry wasn’t always in a rush. In fact the river slowed way down during the dry summer months. Like now, Hurry was taking its time meandering between the banks, winding its way to the next place.

She looked down river remembering the time her Charlie helped her down the steep bank to a small pool of water. He tried to teach her to swim by holding his hands under her back, saying, “Just relax.”

She remembered the way his strong shoulders looked bathed in shadows with the sun making her squint as she looked up into his adoring eyes. He held her with such tenderness that a stirring rose in her and she wondered about the love that soon awaited them.

Charles saw her daydreaming. “What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, nothing,” she lied. His hands released her for a moment and she flayed in response, but he had her again in a second and was laughing. “Trust me, little Lizzy,” he whispered, “I will never, ever let you go.”

She smiled up into his dark brown eyes and decided that he was worthy of her trust. “I was just wondering about our wedding night.”

His response to her words puzzled her for they seemed to send a shock wave through him. He quickly put her down and headed for shore.

“Hey,” she hollered after him. “Did I say something wrong?”

He shook his head but didn’t turn to face her, just grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his waist. When she reached him, he cupped her face in his hand and planted a tiny kiss on each cheek. “No, little darling” he assured her, “you said something right. But I’m trying hard to remember that it’s not fully right for another fourteen days. Understand?”

She nodded as if she did, but it would take quite some time before she would begin to really understand the ways of her man. Looking back she realized that their innocence had been such a great part of the pleasure they discovered as husband and wife—and carried them through years of growing passion.

She clicked her tongue. I wonder why that sweet memory came to me?

Elizabeth used to think that all her memories were stored in a filing cabinet, sorted and labeled and organized in chronological order. But now she thought of them as a bunch of confetti, little bits and pieces of her past tumbling together inside her and tossed up at unexpected moments. When one fluttered into consciousness you might as well accept and celebrate its appearance.

Elizabeth slowly approached the old wooden porch that surrounded the home she was raised in, but before she could put the tattered sole of her boot on the bottom step the front door burst open.

“Grammy! Grammy! Quick—baby Sara’s turning blue.”

Moving faster than she had in eons, Lizzy found the toddler in the arms of her distraught mother. “She fell—off the stool—”

A large red welt protruded from Sara’s pale forehead, a bluish tint colored her lips and seemed to be forming a growing circle around her tiny mouth. Elizabeth grabbed the child and lifted her straight up. If she’d been a tall woman, the child would have touched the tongue and groove, white washed ceiling.

“Almighty One,” she called, as one might call their lover, summoning their presence in a moment of need, “here is my kin—who you gave to me as part of my heritage here on this earth. Since you’re asking me to stay, I’m asking you to let her stay too. I’m asking you here and now to give life back to this child.”

Lizzy’s frail arms began to tremble with exertion, yet she held the child up in supplication until she felt the wind begin to stir. It began as a puff that kissed the cold lips of the little girl. Her mouth opened in response and the air kept flowing, filling her passive lungs, forcing them to move with the rhythm of life. Lizzy acknowledged the answer with a nod and a smile before lowering her great-granddaughter to her own breast.

Lizzy didn’t hear the echo of voices saying, “Thank Heaven you were here, Grammy.” She just held the child gently, remembering the touch of her husband. Her tears fell, tender drop by tender drop, upon the child’s face, like rain bringing new life. And Lizzy swirled in graceful circles around the kitchen, dancing the old familiar dance of thankfulness.

- END -