Once upon a time people lived happily ever after – so long as they were just and good. What does that mean to a young child who cannot see beyond a decade? What does that mean to a child grown up? Eternity? If life everlasting is not implied, then what is?
She was born to a mother who preferred her older sibling and to a father mired in his attempts to rescue his wife from her own self-inflicted, unrelenting burdens of discontent. The child grew with a moderate amount of love and minimal encouragement. She was not particularly brilliant nor was she reputed a beauty. She was, however, the type of person whose reflection of her inner character enhanced her attractiveness as is wont to happen when people are generally fair-minded and considerate towards others. Her older, brighter, more attractive sister had derided her at times as tolerable or middling. And so, she eventually became known to the rest of the world as Middling or Middling Spring due to the time of year she had been born.
As Middling grew, she watched and reflected, for insightfulness was her true gift. Her older sister placed her energies into bewitching and wedding the wealthiest, sexiest young man in the region, alas, believing, as so many victims of domestic violence do, in her ability to tame the arrogant beast. Fortunately, awakening to her daughter’s plight, her mother brought her back home to remain. Middling learned from her sister’s error not to be tempted by self-centered preeners. Likewise, she did not care to repeat her father’s misstep in taking on a role of subservience to an emotionally needy spouse.
Middling favored several lads with amiable personalities who had shown themselves responsible enough to satisfy her peace of mind. Each had at least a nominal amount of intelligence and physical attraction, but one in particular also claimed a ready wit. Luck smiled on Middling, for his first pick would not have him, and Middling made sure she was there to lend comfort. So it was that Middling Spring married with little fanfare the son of the town carpenter and spent her time assisting with decorative carvings when she was not busy tending to hearth and babes at home.
Her children survived their childhood diseases. Neither had befallen any great calamity – a broken bone healed, a frightening near-drowning averted, semi-serious lacerations in the carpentry shop survived. They grew to adulthood and chose reasonable, stable partners who helped to ensure the continuation of the woodworking enterprise.
Such family lives as these yield, perhaps, the common notion of happily ever after, especially if the story ended here. But then the original question would remain unanswered. And that was not to be. For the day of the great fire came — the blaze that swept away a portion of the town taking with it the family business, Middling’s husband, and one of her sons-in-law.
Panic over their continued livelihood eclipsed, temporarily, the sorrow, but when it fell, it held Middling close, restricting her very breath. They would survive financially. The remaining son-in-law’s skill and grim determination, aided here and there by Middling and her daughters, managed to turn a profit in a town now more in need of furniture than before the conflagration. But sadness clung for years among the members of the family.
Eventually, Middling’s daughter remarried a local merchant of dry goods, and grandchildren borne by both her daughters brought new vitality to daily living. Middling slowly regained a sense of surety in life.
More than a decade passed after the fire in relatively peaceful banality. The next menace was not yet lurking. When it came, it crept in slowly. Middling felt it deep within her bones. Simple activity fatigued her. Aches came in familiar patterns. By the winter, Middling stayed by the hearth with her oldest granddaughter in attendance. Brews and poultices administered with compassion comforted her body and spirit. Then she worsened. Herbs were sent for to ease the pain. Taken in large enough quantity, they eventually served to relieve her mind of any earthly concerns. Such stupor shielded her from the worst discomfort while still allowing into her consciousness recognition of the ones she held most dear.
Now to the question of the happily and the after. Clearly, it is not possible to construe as positive traumatic deaths such as the ones of Middling’s spouse and son-in-law, however swift they may have been. Does there exist, though, another death not in complete disparity with the concept of life’s joy? For if happily ever after does not imply an everlasting life on earth, what can be drawn from such didactic tales?
As Middling weakened, her family drew close, offering their presence when nothing else sufficed to ease the burden on their minds. They found grace in providing a soft word, a tender smile, a cradled hand. A certain beauty existed in concluding a life lived in a tolerably gentle manner – unexceptional yet valued, inconspicuous but indispensable to those dependent upon her. There was a gratification for the shared experience of her existence and a dawning of release to come in the moment of transition. And so it happened that, without ado, one ordinary morning in the warmth of middling spring, she slipped away as quietly as she had entered, unnoticed by most save those particularly dear, into the summoning embrace of an unbound and welcoming ever after.
Janet Bergeron is a former librarian and educator. She has been enjoying OLLI classes since retirement, especially improving her Spanish and French, and, most recently, dabbling in creative writing.
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