Fast reading & typing Anon asked: “What’s the most complete life you have lived in a dream?”
A frontier woman from the late 1880s. (era estimated) I was married at 12 and went west with my husband. My first two pregnancies miscarried, but after some personal healing touches (read: rape) by the traveling minister, I conceived. Between then and menopause, I was pregnant 14 times, but only 6 children lived to be married off themselves. Most didn’t live past 2 years of age. My youngest son decided to be a horse thief. He was hung at 13.
We farmed at subsistence level at first. I remembered how to make lace and spun my own thread. The rich bitch banker’s wife found out and cut a deal with me. I make lace ribbon for her, she talk her husband into forgetting about a payment or two. I found her rival was jealous and let it slip where the lace came from. My daughters and I were soon making lace for both and getting paid by both.
A cousin from back east arrived. A businessman, he wanted me to give him some samples. I did. In the meantime, my husband slipped and fell. His leg shattered, he was unable to work the farm. My oldest son took over the farm. His wife resented me remaining there and remaining in my son’s life, but the money I brought in from lacework was necessary to keep the farm afloat.
“Millie’s Magnificent Matronly Lace! Perfect for adding a feminine touch to factory made garments!” Cousin taught me to be shrewd and how to balance books. The bastard. He never did quit trying to cheat me. That’s okay, my daughters and granddaughters learned such unwomanly skills as accounting, auditing, and tracking income and expenses well. Those that didn’t, were not allowed a share of my business. I have been used in my youth, I will not be used in my adulthood.
My husband died. Officially, of a worn out heart. He shot himself from the shame of not being the key breadwinner. He felt less than a man because my lacework business did better in one year, than the farm in ten.
I converted the farm from agriculture to sheep raising. I knew I had to have something unique to the business as I heard England had found ways to use machines to make intricate lacework. My adult grandchildren told me not to worry. My teenage great-grandchildren were too busy playing in dyes.
My hands couldn’t make lace anymore. Arthritis had twisted them so painfully. My daughter-in-law was now my caretaker. She tried to rule over me viciously. She found I could wield a whip just as well as I could when we met! My son tried to defend her but immediately found himself at odds with five generations of kin physically standing up for me. My remaining daughter-in-law helped care for me as my back bowed under the cumulative pressure from the many years I have lived.
War! Must you take my great-grandsons? They have yet to marry! Gone. But the many women that descended from me band together. Some continue the lacework business, others move into other avenues. Their husbands gaining the public glory of the business acumen they learned from me, but they won’t let their men privately forget the source and the force they have inherited from me.
I’m cold. But leave the window open. At night, I’m reminded when it was just my husband and I. The cabin leaked like a sieve and we would huddle for warmth. There were no machines then. No telephone. No rockets. No end to the continent. No fenced in spaces. Just him, me, and the stars that never ended.
No. Don’t cry. Look around you. You have family like the stars have numbers. You are all strong women, with the wild of untamed spaces woven in your bones like lace. Choose your husbands well. You can afford to. I came from dirt. I will return to dirt.
But if you miss me, open a window at night and look in the sky. If you see a star twinkle, that’s me playing.
I love you all, and have no regrets.
~the sound of an elderly woman’s last breath~
~~~
Make of that, what you may.