1858 She Who Knows

Sunday, June 15, 2008

I mentioned a while back that people close to me who were on their way out have waited for me to arrive before they die. I should have qualified that. "... if they knew I was coming and could hang on." It has happened many times, and they always begin the final decline within minutes of my arrival.

My family, my mother's side, believes in "gifts". They won't admit it, but it's there, and it sometimes governs their actions. My mother could always predict the sex of a baby just by looking at the belly. She was never wrong. I always know when someone is pregnant, sometimes even before they know. I always know when a potato has a black spot in the middle. Back when there were always a few bad potatoes in a bag, I was asked to sort them, and bad potatoes never got past me. I know when deer are about to cross the road, and when there's a speed trap ahead. It's just a thing. My daughter is carrying on the tradition. She can tell just by touching someone when something is wrong inside their body, and where. She's always right, with the consequence that she won't hug me tightly because she "Doesn't want to know." It's a family thing.

Anyway, while showering, I was thinking about Great-Aunt Martha and her big feet. That led to all the Scranton family, GAs Bertha, and Sara, and Jane, GUs Fred, and Sammy. And I realized something that never stuck together before. All the GAs and GUs. Gramma. Grampa. My mother's brother Richard. MY OWN FATHER! All of them are long dead, and in every case, I was not informed that they had died, let alone were nearing death, until a week or more after the funeral, when I was informed almost as an afterthought. My siblings knew, and even in some cases attended the funerals, but no one informed me until it was all unquestionably over.

Why?

In the family, I am "She Who Knows Potatoes". Am I also "She Who Brings Death"?
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