Aunty Kit

The light in her eye dimmed and extinguished as she watched him walk, head bent and stiff, out to the jinker , she never quite remember him leaving. Her fiancé was dead.

Catherine, Kit in her playful moments, had dreamt of Chantilly lace, trains and veils of fine gauze. The butterflies in her stomach that danced when he came to call and shyly took her hand had given her a glimpse of new love. His hands were like her father’s and brother’s, worn and weathered from milking cows twice daily and plowing in between. As she gently stroked his hand her fingers tingle and with the lace, trains and veils she had thought of the ring that he would buy her.

This was in 1913 and now in 1915 he was gone. Butchered and buried a foreign land. Gone, there was nothing to say, nowhere to go, nothing to do, she wrung her hands. Gone as if he had never been.

As the light died she descended into spinsterhood. It seemed all the young men were gone, she didn’t care.

Kit’s therapy was her sewing, her sister cared for the house and she sewed. She embroidered and sewed her fingers swiftly and deftly making even stitches. She demurred to her reputation and took her commissions, she attained something of independence as she sewed and sewed.

They took her pictures from magazines and they asked can you sew that? The answer was always ‘yes’. Ball gowns, bridal gowns, ladies dresses, men’s’ shirts and suits – she kept up with the fashion, she had to.

Her Saturday nights were spent listening to the radio – that was the night that they broadcast the balls. She would listen to the music and think of him and his worn hands. She would dance a waltz in her mind and at the end of the dance would look up shyly at him. Then he would be gone and a tear would slide down her cheek. Her dresses often won belle of the ball.

She made many of the bridal gowns of her nieces and she was at all the weddings. Her brother and sisters were her comfort as was her church, her nieces and nephews were her pride and joy as eventually were her great nieces and nephews, but by then senility had its grip.

Into the abyss of the disintegrating mind she fell, first forgetting how to sew and laying down her needles, then forgetting her great nieces and

nephews, then her nieces and nephews, then her remaining sisters. Withdrawn she would sit compliantly in her chair responsive only to her house keeping sister. She ate and slept when commanded, and then she died.

A life defined by World War 1.