An Unassuming Death

Imagined but based on fragments of truth...

One early Autumn evening
in 1935,

eleven days before she died,

my great grandmother, Maria Clara,

called from her bed

for the nurse 

who had been engaged 

to attend to her

during those final weeks.

The nurse responded to the call

with quiet efficiency

and entered the patient’s sick room.

This room was

a small parlour at the back of the house

in which the family had been living

since arriving in England from Alsace

in the early years of the century.

But Maria Clara was no longer

able to climb the staircase

and arrangements had been made

for her installation in the downstairs parlour.

On entering, the nurse was asked

to fetch the sick woman a pencil.

This, she did.

Her assistance was then sought

to support the old woman

out of bed and across the room.

On achieving the far side,

Maria opened the dark wooden cabinet

that stood there,

filled with glassware,

dusty and unused,

and in a shaking hand

she inscribed the words

“Diese Schränk ist für Elsie”

on the inside of the left hand door.

Elsie - 
Paula Elizabeth - 
had, some two years previously,
become my mother’s mother.

Maria Clara placed the pencil

on the polished mahogany top.

Having satisfied herself that it would not roll off,

she returned to her bed

and slept

while the small coal fire dwindled

in the grate.

Over the course

of the next few days

other simple acts of endowment

were performed

to friends and family members

who visited the dying woman;

or, in their absence, through the writing of careful notes

on scraps of paper, which were then

carefully placed within the pages of her missal;

small tokens – jewels, ornaments, trinkets –

passing from one, who considered her life

to be of no real consequence

and of little drama,

to those she cared for

and who now cared for her.

And on the tenth day

after the initial act,

having completed her short catalogue

of bequests,

she died

an unassuming death.

After she had closed the dead woman's eyes,

the Nurse took pains to comb

her silver hair.

She arranged her black lace mantilla

across her face,

and contrived

that her lifeless hands,

holding the missal,

be loosely bound together

by her rosary

in a final act of prayer:

the silver and ebony cross

lying lightly across 

her interwoven fingers.

The family

were then allowed into the room

to pay their

final respects.

Chris reads An Unassuming Death