The tray was burdensome, weighed down as much by her worry and concern as by the dishes and the untasted food. She set it down on the wooden hall chair and rested a moment, letting the newel post at the head of the stairs take her weight.
Had a witness to the moment been standing at the bottom of the staircase and had he cast his eyes upwards, he would have seen a frail-looking elderly woman with a mutinous halo of curly snow-white hair, gazing fixedly into the landing below - staring at the place where the worn wooden steps turned ninety degrees before descending to the main floor. If he had followed her eyes, trying to determine just what it was she watched with such rapt attention, the observer would have been puzzled. It was just an empty landing. Five feet square, plain and unadorned - its only relief , the short-lived beams of a red-yellow winter-sunset flowing through the West window below - casting vivid shadows of the bars of the balustrade onto the bare wall of the landing.
“Red sky at night - sailor’s delight, ” she murmured softly under her breath, so as not to awaken the sleeping patient.
What did she see in the empty landing that the wondering spectator could not?
Please try to understand that what the old woman perceived in that very ordinary space were such sights - such sights! But, sights available only to her private inward eyes.
Now, she looked with deep affection upon the sturdy young bridegroom, pausing there a moment, as he carried his promised life's companion up to the bedroom they would share for more than 60 years. Still shared. Smiling, she recalled how her veil had caught on the railing somehow and had been pulled clean off her little pearl-studded bridal crown - and how they had simply let it stay there until morning. There were more compelling things to be done on that night-of-nights than disentangling frothy veils of pure white tulle. Sadly, as matters stood now, it seemed certain that he would never again recall the glorious heights of their passion that night, nor did he seem to remember the decades of deepening love and toil and commitment that had followed.
He rarely knew who she was, anymore.
But, she beamed as she saw four little children huddled on the landing - all agog and bubbling with anticipation of Christmas magic. Wide eyed, they waited breathlessly to be called - to at last receive permission to tumble madly the rest of the way down. It was a family tradition, that the stockings were hung in the landing, and when the children awakened on Christmas morning, they could go just that far and no farther. Of course, the stockings were opened right then and there, with much twittering and exclamation and many sweet tastings of rare treats. Perhaps even a little trading of small treasures might take place in this interval, but the real moment in time lay downstairs - in the parlour - under the glowing tree.
It would surely have alarmed the covert witness at this juncture to see the woman sway slightly - and close her eyes. With concern, he would have seen her face suddenly crumple with pain - with some unfathomable intensity of grief? [You see, he had no way to discern that inwardly, she was tearing her mind's eyes away from the sober faces of the men - the men who carried a child-sized stretcher down the narrow staircase.] Even though it was very small, they'd had to lift their burden high over the corner post to manage the landing's sharp turn to the right. It was not difficult. The tiny lifeless body on it, weighed very little; nor, in a day or two would her feather-light mass tax the physical strength of the grieving uncles and cousins who would bear her to her final resting place. So young she was - so fragile at the end, that she was almost transparent; yet, she had fought a courageous and sometimes agonizing battle - seeming in the good times, almost about to defeat the dreaded leukemia that finally claimed her young life. Little Rose Mary took with her to the grave, a piece of her Mom’s heart. It left a wound that never healed, and even today - more than 40 years hence - her Mother, remembering - at the top of the stairs, swept away yet another hot and searing tear.
Streams of memories - swirling eddies carrying the lovely and unlovely flotsam and jetsam of other years, issued ceaselessly from the landing. They flooded the old woman's consciousness like an inexorably rising tide, as she stood there - becalmed - her anchor, the newel post - taking a moment's rest.
You know, there once was a calico cat, who slept there in the afternoon sun - for 18 years, she did, before she went to cat heaven.
And a small wailing boy, on one memorable occasion, got his head stuck between the bars and his frantic mother finally got it out by generously soaping his reluctant skull.
There was that dear man, now old and lying without hunger in the marriage bed, who had on one far off yesterday, tried to sneak a sewing machine up the stairs for a special anniversary present. He was caught in the act, as he stopped for breath on the landing!
Nor did the woman forget that a child's imaginary friend had frequented this protected spot and how one had to be especially careful not to step on him; luckily, the child could see his friend quite clearly and he was a valuable navigator - a much needed guide who could lead you - warm, soft hand-in-hand - past and around his good friend-of-dreams, safely and without fatal mishap.
And, there went a sweet-faced girl in her first formal gown, pausing on the landing to give her smiling Mom and worried Dad a loving look, before the prime suspect, [a shy young man in a rented tux] whisked her away; later, that same girl, now a young woman and heartbreakingly beautiful, upon her wedding day, wept as she paused [all in white, as had another before her] on the landing. She said it was because her hair-do was nothing at all like she had wanted it to be. [It must have been quite a departure from the wished-for coiffe, because although he rarely attended to such matters it appeared to bring a tear or two to her father’s eye, as well.]
There was much, much more, of course. But now the time for rest was over. The red-yellow sun had dropped off the edge of the earth and the old house waited in a deep purple pool of twilight, to be put in order for the night A tasty snack required the old woman’s tender preparation - to try once more, to tempt the appetite of the man upstairs - her familiar and beloved husband of all these many years, who still slept peacefully in her arms each night - yet - now as the end approached, awakened a stranger.
The baffled onlooker at the bottom of the stairs might have wondered at this very old lady's light and confident step, as hefting the cumbersome metal tray, she descended swiftly to the landing, and with barely a downward glance, proceeded briskly, sure-footedly, the rest of the way.
Well, this beholder would never understand.
He was simply not privy to the enduring currents of bitter-sweet memory that enfolded her, buoying the old woman up - bearing her calmly and surely on her way to safety on the ever-nearing shore.
She needed to harbour no fear of failing.
The Landing - is dedicated to all those who are committed to the care of ailing kin and especially to those whose days and nights are devoted to the safekeeping of loved ones, who are stricken by Alzheimer’s Disease.
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