Long May You Run
Morgan Zeina Mae and I used to run between the long stretches of crops. Our toes hit on the paths of dirt warmed by the June sun. When we spotted the perfect amount of red on a strawberry, accompanied by a dark green top, it was plucked. Crutching behind the tall stems of the tomatoes growing, we would devour the fruit, hoping grandma couldn’t spot us from the house. The phone rings in the darkness of my room. I reach my hand out from the blanket and search the nightstand for it. Putting the phone to my ear I say “Hello?” First silence, and then gentle sobs broke. “Jane?” It was Mae. I began to sit up and turned on the bedside lamp. “You need to come home. Something happened with Grandma.” I didn’t want to think it was possible, but giving her age, I should’ve known it was coming. My first encounter with death was just after my sixth birthday. It was late spring and my parents brought Mae and I to visit Grandma. While they sat inside and talked over coffee, Mae and I ventured outback. Her property was surrounded by Douglas Fir’s, so old to the land that the tops were impossible to see from the ground. Our rainboots squished in the mud, but we continued and laughed at the sounds our shoes made. We headed for the garden, hoping to see how much the carrots had grown since we last saw them. But there it was. Sprawled out with its mouth open enough to see its small white teeth, it’s brown eyes wide open, chest sunken in. The brown body of a rabbit stretched across the carrot stems. First, we screamed as we ran back to the house, and then once we caught our breath and told everyone, we cried. While Dad went to take care of it, Grandma rubbed out backs as we cried at the kitchen table. When we started to calm down she offered, “Things will be alright. It happens every day. To people, to animals.” She headed to her wall and took down a wooden decoration. A wheel of four colours. “You see, these four colours? They represent many things. Each one of them is the stages of life. These four colours, white, yellow, red, and black, well they represent birth, youth, adulthood, and death. Eventually, we will be just like the rabbit and make it to the end of the circle.” Though she knew we understood, Grandma could always sense when things were wrong. “How would you girls like some bannock?” The drive up north was close to six hours. In this treacherous winter, it could be close to eight. When I told Grandma I was moving to the city, she smiled and reached her arms out to hug me. She whispered, “As long as this isn’t goodbye.”
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