We lived in the country on a dirt road. Outside our kitchen door was a hill with old flag stone steps and a large lilac bush. One evening we had just finished supper and my parents had gone into the living room.  I had to stay in the kitchen until I finished my milk, and I hated milk.

 

I can still smell the cow lingering in my nose from the milking. I sat in a big rocker in front of our open kitchen door, trying to force that milk down, when I saw a gray haired lady turn from the road below and start up our hill. She was wearing a long gray skirt, cream colored blouse and a long feed sack apron with tiny faded print patterns. I remember that her hands were rolled up and hidden inside her apron.

 

I turned my head and yelled that we had company, and when I turned back the old woman was moving slowing around our lilac bush. She seemed in no hurry, as if to find the best blossoms.  I turned again to announce her presence, and when I turned back she was gone. Mom came in to see who it was. I could see she was upset when I told her, and she called my dad in for me to retell the story again. 

 

I had described my grandma who died before I was born. She always covered her hands when not in use because ‘idle hands are the devils tools’. Her house had burnt when my Dad was small and his sister Frances died in the fire. I’m told I looked a lot like my aunt and maybe this is why she visited me.

 

When the old kitchen became my bedroom, my grandma began to visit me during the night. In high school, I awoke to her touch as she lowered me to the floor, saving me from a tough fall from the high antique bed I slept in. This was the only time she ever scared me, I suppose because this time she touched me. 

 

By Susan Jones

(*excerpt from my book, How We Transform) by Fawn