“Gretchen Anne Wilder” (Epitaph)
Born: April 7, 1923
Died: February 22, 1937
I was born on a rainy night. Father did not attend my birth. Mother had told me he was sleeping the whole time. Father was a drinker. Mother covered for him a lot. She doesn’t have to anymore. Father died from drinking too much when I was just eleven. I was happy that mother and I were on our own after Father’s passing. Mother taught me many useful things like cooking, sewing, gardening, and picking the ripest, juiciest berries to bake pies and make jams with. Mother was my mentor and my best friend. She was always there for me, up until she came down with pneumonia. For weeks in December and January of 1935, I took care of Mother, the house, and the land. I would read to Mother at night to help her sleep. Charles Dickens was her favorite. She just had me read “Child’s Dream Of A Star” over and over. I had it memorized after the first three times I read it. I was always good at remembering things.
When Mother died on January 30, 1935, I felt as if I could not go on. Mother was all I had. It was very difficult to keep up with the house and the land then. In desperation, I agreed to marry Mister Jonathan Abernathy. He was 32 years my senior. We married on March 26, 1935. By May that year I was pregnant with our first child. Mary-Elizabeth Abernathy was born on January 30, 1936…… the anniversary of Mother’s death. It was such a sad day. Being a mother at age thirteen was no picnic. Mister had hired help for me though. Still, I missed being a child so very much.
I knew from the day Mary-Elisabeth was born that she wasn’t right. She didn’t look or act like the other, normal children. She was very slow to develop. Her face was fat and her eyes slanted and always looking in varied directions. She couldn’t lift her head, or make any noise other than a grunt. Mary-Elizabeth had colic all the time. Maybe she was in pain from whatever illness she had. Mister would never fetch a doctor though.
Mister was not a nice man at all. Yes he did provide the basic necessities, but he was emotionally distant, physically abusive, and demanded I perform my wifely duties several time a day. If I protested he would take off his belt, bend me over his knee and whip me. I rarely protested. Mister always seemed to be angry with me. Moments before he took my life, he told me why he’d been so angry. Not only had I had a baby girl instead of a boy to carry on his name, but the child was “broken”. Mister said I had evil things inside my womb that made the child this way.
With Mary-Elizabeth in my arms, Mister got closer and closer as he screamed at me. His face was red, his fists clenched and spit was flying from his mouth, hitting my face. Behind me I could feel the railing of the third floor balcony. I knew, and I think Mary-Elizabeth knew as well. This was the end, the end of our suffering. I felt Mister’s hands against my chest, pushing me and my baby girl over the balcony. In the seconds before we hit the ground, I thought to myself, “Thank you God, it’s finally over.”
2005 © L.J.B.
