Cousin Clarence
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
And suddenly it was no longer Spanish before her, but Mandarin Chinese, at Carrie-Bri’s urging. Collette rather wondered if they would ever finish what they had started, but she knew that Carrie would have to eventually, so she had better hop on along for the ride and learn it with her. Italian might have to wait. And then again, it occurred to her that Chinese and Italian were so very different, that she might as well try them both at once.
“Chaos reigns!” She thought to herself.
Oh well… there was all the time in the world before her… perhaps.
She thought back to Sunday where she and OLeif had been preparing for Sunday School, setting up the boxes of brightly waxed crayons and sheets of fresh white paper. OLeif read through the lesson on the Lord’s prayer, while Collette inventoried the tiny scissors for little hands and the Bible memory cards. Then Mom had come up, chipper and Pollyanna as always, except this time, she bore bad news.
“Hi, kids,” she came over.
“Hi, Mom,” Collette stacked the sheets of paper. “Is everyone here yet?”
“Yup. Carrie will be along later. Do you remember my cousin, Clarence, Collette?”
“Oh, of course,” Collette nodded.
How could she forget cousin Clarence. Nearly seven feet high, a big Texan, kind and friendly, a genuine uncle figure. She remembered his kind wife and their son and daughter, her second cousins.
“Well,” Mom went on, “he died the other night.”
“What?”
“He had a massive heart attack. He had been complaining all day about how his chest hurt, and they just thought he needed his blood pressure medicine. So at home, he laid down on the bed while she went to get his medicine. And when she came back… he was gone.”
Collette thought about his poor wife and kids. She hadn’t seen them in over ten years, but she saw their faces in her mind. And she was sad for them. It was good though, that Cousin Clarence was a Christian. The funeral would be soon, but in Texas, so they would not be able to come. But it was a sad thing to hear of. Life was fleeting, as she was always reminded.
The sun had come back that afternoon, unlike most of that week and the week before. Last week, diamonds had twinkled on the bean pod branches beyond the window, rippling in their tiny plump oceans; a world inside a raindrop was a most beautiful thing. And now the sun had a hazy, unwashed tint to it, as though a curtain of rain was shading the world from its most intense light. Collette wondered, from time to time, if the sun had always looked like it presently did, before the great flood. It had often been proposed that a great shield of rain had hung in the sky before the first downpour, covering the world from the sun’s harmful rays; hence folk lived longer back in the old days, as it was suggested.
The wind began to pick up in a weird fashion later that afternoon as the skies darkened against the horizon. A bitter cold was in the air, and promise of storm came on, as Collette put sausage and mustard broth into the crockpot. It would be a cold night of it. She went back to compiling a literature study for Carrie-Bri as the clock passed two. She would save the mail for OLeif to pick up after coffee that night, perhaps, for the wind blew too bitterly for even a short walk… as much as she loved the wind.
The rain softly hit the black pavement outdoors while OLeif was off for his coffee with a fellow co-worker (and Pentecostal boy-band member). The patterns of raindrops hitting the already clear dark puddles in the night, reflected the lamplights on the street, providing an imitation of sparkles and fireworks.
Collette busied herself with several chapters of Shirley Temple before setting about to fixing the sausage with spices and string beans in butter for when OLeif would come home. And then there was her toast in the frying pan and a crystal port glass of fizzing ice-cold ginger ale.
Then the heavens opened to the night and above the torrents, shown the stars bright and keenly, beyond the lightening’s glows, waiting for better things to come.