So much of the past is with us

Jill, Nini and I are spending the night at 221 Mass. Ave., and began to look through an old box of papers from Bano and Papa..... many letters and disintegrating clippings.  This letter from Papa to Bano struck a chord.....

[1929, written by Papa, Don Lawder to his wife Blanche in CT.  Papa was in Chicago with his dying mother, Alice Van Houten Lawder]

9:15 pm

Monday

Dearest Blanche-

You may have a wire from me by this time—I mean by the time you receive this.  She is going.  Probably will not last the night.  It is better so. Her mind is now blank. She could only be a helpless, mindless invalid and even that for only a short time.  The clot has been on her brain so long the tissues are dead. While it has been a strain, still some sort of philosophy has kept me up. Still keeps me up and now I can see her pass away with a fortitude I did not possess a week ago.

I was here when she was conscious. I told her I wouldn’t leave her till she was up on her feet again. She knew that I wouldn’t –and I have so much to tell you of our last days together – they were wonderful—full of understanding.

Somehow my mind goes back to when I was five or six years old.  My grandmother was dead, Mother’s mother.  All I remember is seeing her in her casket—and I also remember riding in a hack on the way to the cemetery. I thought to myself, “I hope my mother won’t die until I am old enough to stand it”. I was six years old then.  Well she didn’t. She stayed to the last- stayed until I had built up my philosophy-then she peacefully departed.  I speak of her now as if she were already dead. To me she is. I have no more emotion to give. That side of me is dead—exhausted.

How thankful I am that I have you—love—a home—children- While the old passes, the young come on with their dreams, their ambitions, their need of protection, to take ones thoughts away from the other end of the road of Life. Dear Girl, you are never absent from my thoughts. I hope you haven’t worried. I haven’t written because my brain seemed dull. I couldn’t do more than carry on here—I thought of you, I intended to wire oftener but somehow the power of volition – of action- was not in me. The days dragged on—each very much like the other—it seemed that time stood still and I, with it.

Good night dear. Don’t worry about me. I have the undertaker and cemetery all taken care of. It only remains….. (last page missing).