*from the archive and oh maybe the early 2000s? who knows at this point, but, in increments I will share and, knock wood, you will enjoy, this old-ish story. Mildred Jensen was an actual math teacher I had in middle school, she was tall and leggy, but everything else is entirely fictional here. I really liked her, a lot, even if – at the end of her career when I had her as an instructor – she was showing not only her age but the age of some of her ideas (boys are better at measuring things, for one).
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So much to be thankful for, Mildred often thought. And when Bill Jr. met a girl through travel around the state, travel he took for 4-H, a girl whose interests in Holsteins and breeding pigs and chickens matched his and whose parents had a much bigger place in Chenango County, with four sisters and no brothers to work it, they gave him – and her – their blessing to marry and go there, if that’s what he desired. It might have been hoped for that he would stay, take over the Gray farm, but – his choice, and now, hers as well, his future bride. Their children, their children, were thriving, one and all, and all those fears about genetics and what not, well, here were four kids whose own parents hadn’t wanted them or couldn’t keep them, and you couldn’t tell, not one little bit, that they weren’t all Grays, born and bred. They congratulated themselves on doing a good job, one of the only jobs that really mattered, for bucking family disapproval, and thanked the good Lord for giving them such fine sons and daughters, for making a family possible through other than normal means. They thanked God.
Mildred made the decision to retire from teaching in 1972, after thirty-two years service, when it seemed the children she taught were no longer children, or children as she wanted to know them; they had no respect, it seemed, not just for her but for adults in general and, too often, she thought they might be right. The school administration was, unlike years ago, weak; going off to conferences and meetings at the drop of a hat. And as for the new teachers! So many of them were, in her opinion, nothing but longhaired, jeans clad lay-abouts. Not only that, the clothes they wore, what they called bell-bottoms – and a stupider style she had never seen, with all that wasted material flopping about the ankles and what had to be deliberate holes in other places in their ‘blue jeans’ she’d be embarrassed to wear the equivalent of around the farm. The whole lot of them were busy being teenagers still, clinging foolishly to their youth, as she put it, at length, to her husband at night.
In 1977 the Gray’s sold their milk cows; Mildred cried all day to see them go, and Bill was not much better. It made their life easier, which they had sought yet, too, they felt the absence keenly of their good friends and companions, and the chores related to caring for them. When a nearby farm, also a small dairy, as theirs had been, decided to sell up, Bill and Millie bought the herd, and brought them down the valley themselves, on foot. Their children understood, even while they thought they were mad. Jim had ideas for the old place, maybe a tree farm, something different, if they’d consider; a conservation easement. What’s that? Oh but they’d consider it, and giving up the cows, sooner rather than later. They sold him the place after Mildred’s stroke, at eighty-five.
She couldn’t speak; she’d lost that part of her life forever, it seemed. Bill stayed by her side, softly smoothing the skin of her hand, reading to her in the twilight before turning on the old bedside lamp, while Rex the fifth or sixth panted at the foot of the bed. She didn’t mind this time of enforced rest; she let go and let go and let go. If she fretted she did so briefly, and only about her husband and the loss he was facing yet, knowing him, she let go some more, knowing he’d be fine; after all, he was built that way, designed for joy as well as sorrow, resilient and brave. Her children came to her side, and made each other laugh, fumbling around the small bedroom where their parents had slept all the nights of their married life, while she watched, her eyes still bright, yet fading, taking them all in, brimming with tears they misinterpreted until their father corrected them; he knew his girl, they were tears of joy, and of satisfaction. Some of her former students visited too, the oldest ones, mostly; this too was a fine tribute.
She made a good end to a good life, everyone agreed, slipping away early one morning when she was alone, for once, in the familiar room, when the family was all awake and either outside, doing chores, or beginning the farm-style breakfast they had always favored. Bill sat with her until the doctor came, and the grandchildren picked wildflowers, her favorites, for a cracked vase that sat on the kitchen table, filing the room with sweet scents as her sons and older grandsons carried her out.