Eulogy for Innocence Lost

Eulogy for Innocence Lost
February 14, 1962

A young girl sat in her 4th grade classroom looking out the window, not really paying attention to her surroundings or the festivities of the day. Her mind was far, far away in another place and happier times. Her small, innocent heart had been shattered and there was no joy in her life.

It was Valentine’s Day which was usually so special and a few days before her 10th birthday. She always loved the party at school but 2 days later on her birthday she got her own special party and a heart shaped cake with the icing of her choice. She and her mother had made a pretty Valentine’s Day box for school the night before. They wrapped it in aluminum foil and placed a slit in the lid for receiving cards from her classmates. Her mother decorated it with Valentine’s Day cards, red and pink hearts and candy. But, this year was different. The delights of her childhood and the innocence of the world that surrounded her had changed in a few short minute’s only weeks ago. Her life as she knew it, her family, and the love that was supposed to last forever were all gone, at least in her heart.

She sat at her desk trying not to cry as her other classmates chattered excitedly about the party. She was dressed in pink, her hair neatly combed and her cheeks freshly scrubbed. But, her eyes were empty and hollow with dark circles beneath them. They were open and looking but not seeing anything of any importance as she swallowed to hold back the tears.

There was one last test of the day before the party began. It was a math test and her hardest subject but she really didn’t care much this day. The anxiety she typically felt before a test was replaced by a lump in her throat and a pain in her heart. She had practiced her times tables at home with her mom and her grandfather but the grade on this test could have mattered less. She answered the questions written on the board and passed her test forward to be graded by the teacher. When it was returned she had answered 100% of the questions correctly. She couldn’t believe it and she thought about how proud he would be.

As the others began decorating the room, she sat at her small wooden desk and thought about her grandfather. He had just been here. He had always been here for her from the day she was born. She had spent much more time with him in her 9 short years than she had with her own father. They did everything together and she adored him. The feeling was mutual. She was the first grandchild of many more to come but only one of two he would get to know.

Two weeks earlier she had been at her grandmother’s house after school. Her mother was staying there as she had just gotten out of the hospital with a bad case of hepatitis and was still quite ill. She and her younger brother went to her grandmother’s house after school instead of going home. Her dad would come for dinner after work and take them home later in the evening. The best part was that she got to spend every afternoon with her grandfather and this was a special treat.

He’d come down with the flu that week and was in his bedroom, not joining the family for dinner because he wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to get them sick. But, as soon as she’d finished eating she left the table to see if there was anything he wanted. He was watching TV and looked up to ask her to have her grandmother come into the room. Her grandmother was in the kitchen and slowly wiped her hands off on the dish towel before walking into his room. At that moment, her life turned into a dream, the world moving in slow motion with noise but no sound, voices without words. Her grandfather fell over in his bed and her grandmother began pounding on his chest and doing CPR as her mother rushed to call for an ambulance.

It was the first moment of true chaos in her life. Everyone was frantic and crying and her mother told her to go out onto the porch and watch for the ambulance to come. She snuck back into the room once and saw 2 frantic women trying to save the life of a dying man. She didn’t yet know what death was but she knew something was seriously wrong.

She sat in a small metal chair on the porch looking up at the streetlight and thinking about how bright it was while looking up the street for the red lights of the ambulance. Time had stopped and it felt like days before the ambulance arrived and men came rushing in the house to her grandfather’s room. She remembered hearing the sobs of her mother and aunt while she sat frozen in her chair – afraid to move, afraid to breath.

A fire truck arrived with more men coming in the house, talking into their radios in serious tones. The next thing she remembered were the men coming out of her grandfather’s small room with him on a stretcher, not moving, not breathing, no longer alive. Her grandfather was leaving home for the last time, never to return, with a sheet covering his face.

Her mom tried to tell her that he was okay and would be fine now. He was safe and wouldn’t suffer anymore pain. He had gone to a place where he could fish everyday and do all the things that he liked to do; a place where he would never have another heart attack, and a place where she would get to go and see him someday. But, she didn’t want him to leave. She wanted him to come back, and she wanted to know when he would be home. The answer to that question still resonated in her mind today and she could feel the darkness envelop her stomach as the wound reopened.

So on Valentine’s Day in 1962, she held her math test in her hand, looked at the 100% score scrawled at the top of the page and turned the paper over. She grabbed her pencil and wrote her first eulogy, a poem about her grandfather.

My Grandfather, February 14, 1962
He was a very good man. He was always doing things.
He’d go out into the kitchen to hear the birds sing.
He’d sit and drink his coffee. He talked to me and mom.
He liked to go fishing. He’d take me in a boat.
We’d have a very good time as we would float.
But now he’s up in heaven and we miss him a lot.
But someday we’ll be with him in that same safe spot.

The handwriting of a child is faded and barely legible today but she can still remember writing those words as if it were just yesterday and she relives what her heart felt and how her life changed forever.

This was the first eulogy she would write and the first loss in her young life, but there would be many more to come.