If only

Little Boy Jimmy made a costume play about a woman who grew up to be a very nice little old lady. Her name was Mary and she lived in Pittsburgh. She played the piano really well and taught both her children how to play, but only her daughter stayed with it. Her son learned how to play the violin with his father.

Mary had sharp opinions that made people mad and she often got herself caught between her husband and her family. By the time her older daughter was seven, she thought about leaving. But she stayed because she loved her husband and she loved her children. Then her son got sick with the same rheumatic fever she’d had as a child and her daughter got sick with scarlet fever. This all happened when war came and they had to ration. Her husband almost went to war, but he didn’t because he was too old. Then peace came and they moved into a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a nice school district.

Then her daughter went to college and her son went to college and her husband got promotion after promotion at work and they started to buy things. Mary saw the wrinkles edging around her forty-ish eyes but she didn’t mind. Mary’s family moved away to Washington and to Baltimore, so with her children out of the house, it was just the two of them. She was happy.

Then her daughter got married to a really nice man with good manners and started having sons and moved to California but moved back to Pittsburgh. And her son got married but he moved to Rhode Island. She got to see her grandchildren lots and lots and her favorite was her daughter’s youngest, Little Boy Jimmy. They grew up and started to go to college and she attended all their graduations.

And then her husband developed Alzheimer’s and after ten years she buried him, wept at the graveside where she’d eventually be buried. But she soldiered on, arthritis in her joints never stopping her from playing the piano and playing with her dogs. Ten years later Mary died in her sleep. She’d been planning a train ride to Philadelphia the next morning to visit Little Boy Jimmy who grew up and moved away, too.

If only life had happened this way for Mary, but when her daughter was seven, she had no say in the matter about leaving her husband and children. She died of heart failure three months before her thirtieth birthday.