The Pretty One

The Pretty One
July 29, 1939 – April 11, 1994


She was always “the pretty one” with her long jet black hair and the laughing eyes that changed from brown to green. She did amazing things as I was often told. When she was just a little girl she’d pull up a stool and wash dishes and could iron and sweep and sing like an angel, all that and of course, she was “the pretty one”.

She ran away and married way too young much to my father’s sorrow and could not be found. He grieved for her and then he died a short time later, not knowing what had happened to his oldest daughter, “the pretty one”.

Then she returned to us and life was good, we were happy to have her with us once again. Soon she would have a daughter followed over the years by another daughter and two sons, but she never lost the right to her title, she was definitely “the pretty one”.

Her marriage was not made in Heaven to say the very least, in fact I think her life was Hell but to the world, she smiled with her lips and faintly with her eyes and only if you looked deep enough, could you see that only on the outside was she “the pretty one”.

Over the years her life turned from sad to even worse and she swapped one marriage for another, each more painful than the one before; why couldn’t happiness be a part of life for “the pretty one”.

Too early, way too early her memory started to slip. Always one to look perfect when she walked out the door, she shopped in slippers and forgot to brush her hair. She was checked by the doctor and Alzheimers was the diagnosis, all agreed it was such a shame because she was so young and had always been “the pretty one”.

Visiting her in the nursing home, we’d ask where she might be and the nurses would say, “oh, the pretty one, she’s watching television down the hall. And one day the phone call came and our hearts were broken to hear, at fifty-five she was gone. What a tragedy, how could this be? This is not the way her life should have gone, after all, she was “the pretty one”.