Here is prolific contributor Peggy Dobbs’ second entry into our A Dish Called “Wanda” contest.  She examines complicated family ties, the push and pull of filial love, and the responsibility which falls heavily on the shoulders of children who feel an uncomfortable reversal of roles as they care for those who once cared for them.

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Dried Rose Petals on the Floor

She never had any children of her own. It seems almost cruel, yet her kind of love was too possessive to raise a child. It was the kind of love that did not know how to say “NO!” There was never a child of any race or color that she didn’t love instantly and they, in return, sensed that love and returned it.

I was an only child and my mother resented the fact that her sister-in-law thought I belonged to her. I felt like a wish bone. My aunt pulling and wishing I was hers and my mother pulling, confident I belonged to her. There was a quiet dislike between them from the beginning of their relationship. My birth fed flames of dislike with jealousy like a hot iron left on warm ultimately leaves the imprint of a scorched outline.

My aunt told wonderful stories to me, my children and their children. One of our favorites that we insisted she tell over and over began, “The locals warned me about Wanda’s, but why was there anything for me to be afraid of?  They didn’t know that Wanda’s looked like a very scary place on the outside to keep adults away, but since I loved children so much, I was allowed to be the door keeper.  Children knew that Wanda’s was the door way to a magical land that only the children and I could see.”  From that point, the story would differ with each particular child.

She lived to be ninety and for a few months, I tried to take care of her in my home.  With her mind slipping, the nurses where she had been living, told me it would be too much for me to handle.

It was!

I had to return her to the nursing facility for my own health’s sake. She lived there until she died. But her love and her stories still live in the hearts of all the children her life touched.  One day when my perceived failure caused the inevitable guilt to surface, these words erupted:

Who is this old person who lies in this bed, who demands my attention and demands to be fed.

Who asks where I’m going and when I’ll return.

Who wants what she wants with no care for the ruin of any other life on this vast planet earth.

Has she been this way always…this way since her birth?

Who is this old person who lies in this bed as she’s viewed by my aging eyes, in my graying head?

This caregiver’s not old, but neither is she young.

In caring for this old person, is there no joy left to be sung?

If only I could remember before age took its toll,

Through the mind of a child before this loved one got old.

Who is this old person who lies in this bed?

Did she rock me and tell stories and see I was fed?

Did she take me to town and gently pinch on my cheek?

Did we really have tea parties at her house once a week?

I wish I could remember. It all happened…but when?

Through the mind of a child, I need to go back there again.

Who is this old person who lies in this bed?

Surely, my childish recall can’t already be dead.

But I do remember with clarity, she told me one day,

“You can know you did all you could, when I’ve gone away.”

So as I look at her there in such a wrinkled up state,

Seeking the mind of a child, I know is too late.

This old person here, who lies in this bed

Has all rights to her dignity and it must always be said

That she was cared for and loved because she had worth.

It’s her right as a person, but in me, there is no more mirth,

As I watch while she withers like dried rose petals fallen to the floor.

Through the mind of a child, the one I loved so…is not here anymore.

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Editor’s Note: I watched my own grandmother – a rather memorable personality – slowly transformed by age into someone less and less like the person I knew as a child.  Maybe, when someone you love dies, there’s always a feeling that you could have done more; the truth is, we do the best we can at the time.