A Stroll to Remember

Edna Thompson and Neil McDougall, who met when she was fifteen, and he seventeen, took their first stroll along the beaten trail that led to the maple bush at the back of Neil’s parents’ farm. On that golden autumn day when they first held hand in hand as they walked, leaves crunching underfoot, they knew intuitively that the stirring in their hearts could never be denied. Neil was captivated by Edna’s shy smile, her deep dimples, and her long auburn hair; she by his warm face, gentle voice, and six-foot frame. When they reached the woods, Neil withdrew a jackknife from his pocket and in a grand and gallant gesture selected just the perfect tree. Then, while Edna watched, smiling, he carved a heart and their initials with an arrow slicing through.

The next few years brought marriage, the birth of their daughter Katie, and the long hours of hard work that came when they assumed responsibility for Neil’s family farm, his parents having grown ready for a change of location and a slower pace of life. From sunrise to sunset, they maintained a hectic pace, with Edna caring for their newborn, preparing meals, and cleaning while Neil was busy tilling the fields, planting crops, and tending livestock. At the end of the day, they were usually exhausted, with little or no energy left for each other. Late one night, as they were preparing for bed, Edna expressed her feelings that they were working too hard and drifting apart.

“It’ll all be worth it someday!” Neil said testily, his face flushing as he undressed. “We’re trying to build a life!”

“And at what cost?!” Edna said, frustration straining her voice. “What will we have gained if we’ve lost each other?” The continuing clash of their voices soon wakened Katie, who began to cry in her crib in the room at the end of the hall.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Neil snapped, scowling, as Edna left to soothe Katie. “We can’t even have a few minutes to ourselves without her starting to bawl.”

Less than a week later, Edna was checking on Katie for her five a.m. feeding when she reached the crib and let out a pained scream. “Neil!” she cried. “Come here! Quick!”

Neil leapt out of bed and bolted down the hall, and when he stood breathing hard at the entrance to Katie’s room, he saw Edna holding their lifeless baby tightly against her chest, her cheek pressed against Katie’s face, which was cold and blue. Edna’s eyes were filled with horror; Neil’s with disbelief.  “Our baby, our baby, our baby!” Edna cried. When his thoughts cleared, Neil tore downstairs to call Doctor Graham, who came as quickly as possible. The doctor could only confirm what they already knew in their hearts. “It happens,” he said sadly. “It’s called crib death. A baby unexpectedly dies and no one knows why. There’s nothing you could have done.”

For months after the funeral, Edna and Neil felt the weight of grief and guilt crush upon them. They were like strangers wandering through an empty life.

“What’s happening to us?” Edna asked forlornly at the breakfast table one morning.

“It’s called life,” said Neil, his voice flat. He was hunched over the table.

Edna shook her head against a thought she couldn’t accept. “No, there’s got to be more,” she said with sudden emphasis. “Remember,” she continued earnestly as she looked at Neil, “remember when we first met and you carved the heart in that tree? Remember how we felt?”

Neil straightened. “Course I do, but …”

“Take me there. Walk with me like we used to.”

“But the chores –”

“Be damned the chores!”

Neil’s eyes flickered with surprise at Edna’s forcefulness, but he was excited by the spark of life which it ignited inside of him. Within the hour, Edna and Neil set out for the bush and sought out the tree with the heart that was a symbol of the young love they had once felt. When they found it, they were both flooded with pent-up emotion. Soon they were crying and kissing and embracing. Before leaving, they made love for the first time since the death of their darling Katie. Afterwards, Neil withdrew his jackknife and once more carved the outline of the heart. They were holding hands when they walked back to the house.

With their relationship on the mend, they set to work as a team, stronger than they had been independently; and soon they were blessed with two healthy baby girls. Once a year in the fall, Neil and Edna would free themselves from their chores, if only for a couple of hours, and return to the bush to renew the vows their hearts still kept. The stroll gave them precious time to themselves and also reminded them of what had drawn them together in the first place. Each time, Neil would withdraw his knife and refresh the outline of the heart and their initials. Sometimes they would take a thermos of tea to enjoy; and sometimes when they felt especially daring, they would sneak a blanket to the woods with them and lay it over a soft patch of ground and make love as though for the first time. When old enough to appreciate their parent’s romantic nature, their girls could never resist letting the occasion pass without some good-natured kidding. “Did you have a good time?” they would ask with sly grins. Edna would blush, looking off into the distance, and Neil would simply grin and walk away whistling, leaving the girls to giggle at the thought of their naughty parents.

As though in a rushing dream, their daughters grew, graduated from school, and then departed for careers and families of their own. For the next twenty years, Edna and Neil tended the farm as well as they could, until creeping frailties in both of them required that they hire Frank, a helping hand. At first, he worked just every other day (Neil being certain, Edna more doubtful, that he could still carry half the burden of work); but within a year, they realized that they needed Frank’s help on a daily basis. There was always something that needed to be done: cows to be milked, chickens to be fed, hay to be brought in, wood to be cut and split, repairs to be made to both the buildings and the machinery. Neil, who had developed stooped shoulders and a slight limp, would usually be present at the various tasks, if only to talk, recount stories, or share a little advice. Frank didn’t mind, for he enjoyed the company and knew that just being there gave Neil a much-needed sense of purpose. If the work was in a back field, Edna would pack them a hearty lunch, with more than enough food for two working men.

The occasion to mark all occasions was their golden anniversary, with a celebration which was planned by their daughters and son-in-laws and held at the local hall decorated with balloons and ribbons. A small exhibit of selected photos spanning fifty years of marriage was displayed along one wall. There, captured in grainy black and white photos, were Neil and Edna looking fit and trim, beaming as they posed arm in arm beneath a tree to the side of the small Presbyterian Church in which they had just been married. There they were, standing proud as could be in front of their first car, a Chevrolet. There, too, were photos of Edna cradling their babies, and Neil, with his hair slicked back, hovering at her side on the front porch of their farmhouse. Their daughters had imagined that one hundred visitors might attend the celebration; but the hall was filled to capacity with friends and relatives, all eager to express their good wishes and reminisce about the good old days. Ladies from the local church group rushed about serving sandwiches, squares, and tea, and coffee. Edna was caught totally by surprise when Neil, whom she knew to be a very private and shy man, pushed his chair back from the table, buttoned up his suit coat, and made his way to the podium at the front of the hall.

“What in the heck is he doing?” she said with an incredulous look to her youngest daughter.

“Many of you know that I’m not much of a public speaker,” Neil said with a voice which initially faltered, “but I felt that on an occasion of this importance I just had to say a few words.” The hum of conversations gradually faded and the crowd of well-wishers turned to face the front of the hall as Neil continued.

“I would like to thank you all for taking the time to share in our special day. It means a lot to both of us. But the person I want to thank the most,”—and at this, he turned to focus on Edna—“is my darling Edna. She has been my world, my shining light in some of my darkest moments. I’m the luckiest man alive because of our time together. I can’t imagine what life would have been like without her.” Neil cleared his throat and then went on to speak of shared memories and of how the community had changed. When he stepped down from the podium, amidst rousing applause, he went straight to Edna and kissed her gently on the lips.

Only a few days later, Edna was looking out their kitchen window while washing the breakfast dishes when she saw Neil, dressed in his coveralls, coat, cap, and rubber boots, slip on the slope between the barn and the house, then crumple to the ground. For a moment, she waited for him to pick himself up; but when it dawned on her that he hadn’t made any attempt to brace his fall, she quickly threw on her coat, pulled on some boots, and briskly walked to him. Her hands were still damp from the dishes when she knelt down and touched his cheek. As tears began to flow, she embraced his body tightly and placed a lingering kiss upon his forehead.

That same fall, the time for Neil and Edna’s annual stroll came and went amidst a week of rain and grey skies, Edna grieving so that days and nights blurred together. She had little appetite, for food or anything else life had to offer. On most mornings she was at a loss to think of a reason for rising out of bed. It was then that Frank kept the farm running smoothly. Family and friends attempted to persuade Edna to leave the home that had so long been hers and move into an apartment in town. “Think of how much easier life would be,” they impressed on her. There would be the convenience of stores and buses and the proximity of people her age. There would be euchre parties and a church within walking distance. “Just one more year,” Edna would say. “I want to try to manage for one more year. I’m not ready to leave yet.”

Weeks and months passed, carrying Edna through another year—to a cool fall night that inspired her to light a fire to heat the large kitchen. As she had done time and time before, she adjusted the damper, crumpled the local newspaper into the stove, set the kindling just so, and struck a match. When the flames were puffing steadily and the kindling crackling, she reached to the woodpile at the back of the stove and picked up a piece of split maple, which Frank had carried in and piled. Turning it in her hands as she leaned over the opening in the stove, she glimpsed the shape of what remained of the heart that Neil had carved and re-carved each year. The heart was split, but with her reading glasses on, she could still make out their initials.

Edna pulled back the piece of wood and placed a different one in the stove. For a while, she remained in the kitchen as it warmed; content to rock in the glider chair at the end of the large wooden table. And while she rocked, she cradled that piece of maple as though it were a child; she stroked its rough surface as she thought and thought some more, until she knew it was time to leave the farm. It would be the right move; yes, she could feel it. It was half-past midnight, long past her usual bedtime, when the glider chair finally was stilled.

When morning dawned with mixed hues of pink and orange, Frank was surprised and then alarmed that Edna was not at the door to greet him; they almost always shared coffee together before chores. “Edna?” he called, as he tentatively poked his head into the kitchen. The room was cool, almost frosty; the fire having long since burned out. A glance in which his eyes landed upon the glider chair confirmed his worst fears. Edna was dead; he knew by the pale blueness of her skin, the lean of her torso, and the slump of her head. Stepping closer, he was puzzled to see that a block of maple wood was resting in her lap, her hands, palms up, at either end. What a silly thing to be holding, he thought initially. It was not until he looked more closely and noticed the initials and the split heart that he realized its importance. How it ever stayed there on her lap he would never know. With a knot in his throat, Frank walked to the phone on the other side of the kitchen, made the necessary calls, and stepped outside into the cool morning air.