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The Sum of Her Days

A Life's Work in Service to Others.

By Christina HunterPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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Her, Smiling With Her Friends.

1988

I am five years old and weaving my way through the cobblestone streets in the cool mountain air. The Italian sun is high above us now, it's midday. I'm wearing a chunky-striped tank top that she knit for me, my cheeks dirty from the day's play, my hair disheveled. I come across a wash basin, which seems to be a strange murky pool...for ducks? I am curious and inch closer to peek over the edge. She explains it's how the people of the village wash their clothing. She makes a motion to scrub something against the cool hard stonework on the ledge. Later we bring a toy sailboat back to the spot and blow it across the still water.

Me, Italy 1988

This was her country, long before she was Grandma-around-the-corner in our wartime neighbourhood back in Canada. We took a plane that summer across the Atlantic and stepped back in time to a three dimensional museum of the days of olde. That August we spent eating juicy figs in the afternoon sunlight, hiking far into the mountains and stopping for picnics of bread, cheese, salami and grapes. She carries me on her back down the mountain because at five years old I am tired. She cooks a meal of polenta and beef for us while I play hopscotch in the courtyard with my brother and sister.

Her, Mom, Me. Italy 1988

2016

An egg has burst from an overboiled pot on her stove. She calls my mother to ask if she's taken her pills. She has. There are crumbs on her floor, and her bathroom is a mess. My mom pretends to look for something while she sneaks down the hallway to clean it up. My mom bundles up her laundry and sneaks it out of the house. I think back to the wash basin, to the women around the tub as they gossip and scrub away the previous day's dirt. I wonder if her mind would have slipped just the same, had she stayed in the mountains, in her country.

We move her to a manor where she attends meals in the evenings with a group. She plays bingo and refuses to do the daily exercises. My daughter's kindergarten class sings Christmas carols in their lobby and she smiles ear to ear.

She escapes the manor and a young man finds her sitting on the road. She tells him her address and he drops her off at her home. She sits on her front steps until a neighbour calls my mom. She is moved to a new facility, where she can't escape any longer.

I ride my bike after dinner and sit with her until she falls asleep. She doesn't like her roommate, and asks where her brother is. She is in this facility, but she is also in Italy, with her babies, with her friends, with her mom and dad. Five weeks later, she is gone.

2021

I am pacing between the laundry basket and the closet. Choosing each article of clothing and hanging it up. It's monotonous work and I start to think of the sum of my days. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, walking the dogs, helping the children. I crave more. But then I think of her. Nearly 100 years of service to others. An entire life, and an integral part of many lives in her daily duties she so seamlessly attended to. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, knitting, helping the children. It was the sum of her best days.

I think of my Mother, who worked quietly in the background so as not to disturb her idea of how those days went in the end. A caretaker's work of a caretaker. And I, sitting beside her bed while she dreamed of home, felt purposeful in my quiet approach. It was my way of carrying her down the mountain. A Mother is a Mother is a Mother.

1922 - 2016

Silvia Ferrari was born in a small village in northern Italy to parents born at the turn of the century. She married a boy from the village and had two boys three years apart. After the war, her husband travelled across the Atlantic by ship in search of work on the rail road in Canada. She eventually followed with her two boys, now 9 and 12, trekking across the ocean by ship to meet him. She didn't speak the language. She couldn't drive. She moved her family from town to town in northern Ontario while her husband's work shifted to new areas. She learned the language. She provided for her family. She became widowed before the age of 70, and continued to live alone for another 25 years.

Uncle, Dad, Her, 1950's Italy.

Those moments when I'm mid dish-scrub, or searching Pinterest for the next meal idea to feed my family, when I'm folding the smallest of clothing and placing them in children's dresser drawers, I pause and think of her. I am so grateful for her years of steadfastly giving to others, it has taught me that at the end of the day, if the sum of my day was in service of others, it's a rich life.

grandparents
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About the Creator

Christina Hunter

Author, Mother, Wife. Recipient of the Paul Harris Fellowship award and 2017 nominee for the Women of Distinction award through the YWCA. Climate Reality Leader, Zero-Waste promoter, beekeeper and lover of all things natural.

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