In Memory Of [Chapter 1]

Click here for the song the woman is singing

There was a person sitting on my bench.  Okay, so I guess it was actually my grandfather's bench, it was in memory of him after all.  But everyone in town new it was my bench.  I went there to read, write, play guitar, or just cry, and nobody ever bothered me.  It wasn't like the cemetery, where you would see someone crying at a graveside and feel obliged to pray with them. I could grieve in peace there and all everyone else could do was whisper to their friends, "There's Elmer's crazy granddaughter, bless her heart."  

But yet here was this person I had never seen before, in my spot.  If they had been smoking or on their phone or reading the newspaper or just sitting there, I would have just left and went to the cemetery.  If they had been crying, I might have hugged them.  But no, they were singing softly in a smooth and flawless voice. It was something I couldn't understand, maybe French.  They were smiling but when our eyes met for a split second they looked sad.  So I joined them on the bench. 

They turned, but didn't stop singing. 

La mer

Les a bercés

Le long des golfes clairs

Et d'une chanson d'amour

La mer

A bercé mon cœur pour la vie

That must have been the last verse because then they stopped.  Their face was still made up of a happy smile and sad eyes.  I took the time to really look at them.  It was a woman, an old woman with wispy gray hair and laugh lines.  She wore a dark pink dress with lipstick of the same shade.  A silver broach of an owl with gold eyes was secured to her chest.  She was absolutely beautiful, the prettiest woman I had ever seen who was old enough to be grandmother.  

"That was beautiful."  I said in an awed whisper, only realizing after I said it that she might not speak English.

"It was his favorite." She patted he gold plaque on the bench that bore my grandfather's name. "He would play piano and I would sit next to him on the bench and sing.  Neither of us actually owned a piano though, so we stayed at the music store until we were kicked out, every day."

What she was saying didn't make sense, my papaw didn't play piano. And I didn't know this lady.  This was a town where everyone knew everyone and if she had so much as asked him for sugar once,  I  would have at least heard of her. 

"You knew my grandfather?"

Her pale blue eyes lit up and this time when she spoke I noticed a french accent.  Not a heavy one, just a slight lilt to her words. "You are Grace and Timothy's little girl?"

"I'm Harmony.  And I would hardly say I'm Grace and Timothy's.  I never met Grace and Timothy left when I was 3.  So, no, I've always been Elmer and Elizabeth's little girl."  I never talked about my parents and I had no idea why I felt compelled to tell my life story to this stranger.  Maybe I thought she might have known my mom and dad and I was desperate to know something, anything, about the people who gave me my curly hair and dark brown eyes and skin that was neither black nor white but some middle ground.  Maybe I was just glad there was someone talking to me who didn't have that, "You poor thing.", look on their face.

She nodded sympathetically.  "Your grandfather and I were friends. Best friends actually, we caused all kinds of trouble together.   We met in France, he had to go back to the states, I stayed.  But he always wrote. 1 letter every single week. For 30 years."

I smiled, there was something heart warming about my grandpa keeping in touch with her for 30 years.  I was also more than a little curious about him.  About the man Elmer Jennings was before he became Grandpa Elmer.  "Can you tell me about him, about you guys."

She grinned and cleared her throat. "Oui. It was during the war..."