A Basket of Chips: An Autobiography

Basket of Chips, page 093

Love and Grief I made arrangements to be called at any time if a sudden change came, but it was only a gradual sinking. The next day at one o'clock I found her with the pallor of death on her fea- tures. She reached up her arms to me with just a little moan. I will always believe she was reaching for me. I put her arms around my neck. The nurse said she knew I was with her. These were our last moments we were to spend together in this life. I carefully removed the wedding ring from her finger, took some locks of her hair, and then waited for the end. She passed to the land of the unknown while the nurses were tend- ing to her. OUR GREAT SORROW It was near three o'clock. My children were at home and there were many things to be done at the hospital: arrange- ments to be made; questions asked me to go down on record, and other things. One question, the date of her birth, I could only give them February. It seems as though all my faculties were drifting away and such a longing to be with her had come over me. She was off, alone, without my protection. I asked them to keep her `till Ruth and I could come to make arrangements. Then came the trip back to the little home we had taken her from. Now she was "on her adventure." The bundle of her precious things they tied up in newspaper. I took it with me; the mechanical part of me worked. I reached home someway without accident. The two youngest children were waiting and I took them in my arms. They seemed to know. Ruth came a little later. She looked and seemed to know also. With what strength and courage she stood by me! I was just a little child now and she accompanied me everywhere. I did not dare cross a street without her. I told that little mother that I would take good care of her children, and I fought hard to get back to life again for their sakes. But it would have been so easy to let go. 93