Page 93 - Margaret Neil James - A Love Story

ISSUE : Issue 60

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1992/6/1

And he just looked at me for awhile. Closed his eyes. I thought then, I wonder if I should have said that, you know. Be? cause then he might be thinking I'm thinking he's not go? ing to get better. And he said, "No, Ma? ma, I said it all and I did it all." So. And the last thing he said to me in the hospital was--the priest came in and anointed him and everything. Well, he was anointed several times. He was anoint? ed when he first came in there. But then they really prepared him for death the last time. And he gave him communion, and he gave me communion, and he gave his sis? ter-in-law communion--she was a nurse. The Old Mama's sister--she was there with me, Neil said, "Give him some money. Mama," He always wanted to give the priest some mon? ey. So every time--I'd always have $5 bills tucked in a little pocket in my purse, so if there was a priest came in, I'd give him money. So the last words he "Give him some money. And Neil just lived an hour after that. (If you had the choice--would there be any change you'd make?) Not in the life I had.... No, I don't think I would want to change any bit of it. And I'm very glad that it worked out the way it did. Because it meant that I--when I think back now--I couldn't have any children. And I often said that I felt sorry for mothers--any parents, mother and father both--who brought children into the world, and they were so sometimes poorly treated by them. And I thank God for the hus? band that I got, and the real dar? ling of a husband that I did have. And he sure loved me, and he didn't mind showing it, when he got used to the idea that this was life and this was the way it was going to be. But you know, I'm a stickler for old ideas. After I married Neil, I never let him leave the house without kissing me goodbye. Because I always felt that that was going to bring us closer together. And if something, God forbid, would happen to him on the road, that he would have left the house being good friends, you know, together. And I always felt that that was going to bring him back home. Somehow or another I al- Grandma MacNeil (Nell's mother); Grandpa MacNell churning, with three children helping ways felt that God was up there and he was watching and he knew I was trying, you know. (Did Neil's parents live very long after you came?) I came here in 1954. Grandma died in 1958--April the 28th, 1958. And Grandpa died on June the 16th, 1960. And Aunt Lucy died the 17th of March, 1971. One day Grandpa was sitting in the dining room, and he was very down because-- because of his health condition, he was making a lot of wash. He started crying-- and I said, "What are you crying for. Grandpa?" And he said, "Oh, I'm making so much work." And I said, "Well, don't you worry. You just pray that washing machine keeps going, and I'll do the work!" And the washing machine--you could hear that washing machine to the main road, because it had been going for a good many years. said to me were. This Budget deal has everybody talking! ( mes FROM KjCfD'FT... Phone (902) 562-1223 Budget; rentacar The Smart Money is on Bucket.

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