Heartsill Wilson & Grandma

When my mother gave me my first purse and wallet I felt so grown up. I must have been in the 5th or 6th grade.

I loved all the little pockets within that wallet where I could place my school picture, my friends school pictures, my library card and on that rare occasion, money.

In those days, during the summertime, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother.

I always brought my purse.

She had a little shed just a few steps away from her trailer in the country. Once in a while, when all the chores were done, she would open the door to that shed and usher me into the darkness while simultaneously turning on the dim light bulb dangling from the ceiling beams.

Amongst stacked boxes, old musty suitcases and the wooden chest filled with brand new nightgowns she never wore because they were too special, I would quietly wait for that light to stop swinging.

Watching and listening to her pick up different items as her thoughts ventured backward, somewhere I could not reach, always felt like I had a foot in two different worlds.

On one such occasion she sifted through a box of old letters and stained recipe cards that held no interest for my curious eyes, fixated on other objects I longed to hold and ponder over instead.

But she drew my attention to her outstretched hand where a bright yellow paper similar to the weight of cardstock, maybe 3 x 4 inches with words typed in black ink, lay in her wrinkled palm.

It was Heartsill Wilsons poem “The Beginning of A New Day.”

She read it to me in her shaky voice, thin lips barely moving.

‘Today is the beginning of a new day. God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good. What I do today is very important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it. When tomorrow comes this day will be gone forever, leaving something in its place. I want it to be gain not loss. Good not evil. Success, not failure, in order that I shall not forget the price I paid for it.”

When finished, she pressed it into my own youthful palm, smooth as a baby’s bottom and told me to place it in my wallet.

“One day you will see” she said.

That was it. She did not expand.

Too big for the little slots, I folded the paper in half and then again, pushing it into the tight space next to Paul's school photo. I had the biggest crush on that wide grin.

With my love for poetry I liked the words grandma handed me, but most of all in that moment I was just happy to have something new in my wallet.

My future was now, what lay before me was a secret, and I had absolutely no idea who Heartsill Wilson was.

I carried those words with me through many wallets and purses to come; well after my grandma passed away. Well into my thirties before it was somehow lost along the years.

Today I understand all the words she was trying to tell me on that scrap of paper, then. I have lived enough days to know truth.

I see what she knew and wanted me to know. How within her quiet ways her own words were locked away, but she had Heartsill Wilsons to pass on.

And she did.

I understand how we all have something to pass on. We must find our own way to express it to someone we love and only the passing of time and life can show us what that is or how to do it.

My grandmas shed. That space was filled with all kinds of treasures that came from another place, another time. Another world that I was aware of but only on the surface.

And although I could not truly comprehend, even then I sensed it was to remain forever there.

But I loved her and the little slices of mystery she would reveal over trinkets and tablecloths and cracked baby dolls she placed gently back in their nooks before she pulled back and closed the door, ushering me from darkness into sunshine with the gift of Heartsill Wilsons words inside my purse.

Just waiting for life to begin.

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If you enjoyed my book "If I Saw You on Sunday" which was a fundraiser for a school in Mexico, I am currently working towards another book of my collective writings and have joined Vocal to help with the cost.

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