The News from Calgary

Sit a spell, the old man said to my grandmother, handing over a pale, blue envelope, This come today.

We'd driven the sixty miles to the mainland, as we did every two weeks, to visit him. Nana had made an angel food cake and baked fresh apple muffins but these were put aside in favor of the letter.   Uncle Whit had never been taught to read or write and with his wife long gone, his only remaining family was a daughter in Calgary - who, Nana liked to remind me, wrote faithfully and at length, usually including snapshots.   She never failed to remember Christmas or his birthday and sometimes even enclosed a crisp, new $5 or $10 dollar bill for no reason at all.   Everyone has incidentals, she wrote, and it's good to have a little mad money.   Last time, Nana had checked, Uncle Whit had well over $300 neatly folded in a money clip he kept under his pillow.

Whitney Ford Titus!  she'd exclaimed, Why in heavens name isn't this in the bank?


Don't rightly recollect ever trustin' them fellas in those monkey suits, Uncle Whit had said placidly, I sleep better with it close by.


But Nana could be a formidable opponent and at our next visit she brought along a small metal lockbox with a pair of silver keys.  She counted out the bills slowly and carefully then laid them neatly inside along with the house key he was never to use again, his collection of pictures, and his wife's wedding ring.  She fastened one key to a long chain and slipped it over his head and inside his shirt - the other, she tucked securely into her change purse.


Now, she said with a satisfied smile, We'll both sleep better.


Knowing he was beaten, Uncle Whit shrugged and motioned to a chair.  Sit a spell, he repeated impatiently, and read me my damn letter.


Dear Daddy, my grandmother began and the old man propped himself up on his pillows and closed his eyes to hear and imagine all the news from Calgary.  Nurses came and went, other nursing home residents passed by the open door and waved a greeting, medications and meals were delivered, linens changed.  Nana read until Uncle Whit fell asleep then we left as quietly as we'd come.  It was just a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, not much of a sacrifice if you were young and restless with all the time in the world, but precious hours to give away if you were my grandmother.  I never told her - she'd have likely cuffed me rather than accept a compliment - but it made me proud.  It still does.