The Angel in My Pocket by Sukey Forbes

Author:Sukey Forbes
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group, USA
Published: 2014-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

August 22–30

It has been a memorable summer. We relocated the Bigham home (from Woodside, California, to Weston, Massachusetts) in June and then had an idyllic month of July here at Mansion House. We had a lovely early August weekend on Nashawena with the Miller family (Jacki Forbes’s daughter Nicole) and then a wonderful stormy weekend for Shareholders here with the whole crew. Friday night’s potluck is fast becoming a tradition and gets better each year.

Our late August has been hit with enormous sorrow as our beloved middle child, Charlotte Saltonstall Bigham, died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 61/2. We believe the cause was spontaneous malignant hyperthermia made worse by a possible underlying neuromuscular condition. We are all still reeling from this loss but are comforted by the family support we have felt from everyone. It is our hope to create a memorial garden here in her name. Charlotte will be deeply missed and always remembered.

Sukey and Michael, Cabot and Beatrice.

Following the entry, seven-year-old Cabot drew a small figure of a little girl and wrote “Charlotte” underneath it.

• • •

For years, leaving Naushon meant standing on the bow of the ferry with the wind in my face, looking toward Woods Hole. This time I had to stand on the stern looking back. I felt as though I was being ripped away from my mother’s breast, and I just could not stop the tears. I could have hidden on the island forever, huddled in this small, secure, and limited world where the rules were clear, and where we’d already had the confrontations with our sorrow and made the adjustments. God only knew what life was going to demand of us back in the real world.

We still had two children to take care of, and Michael had a demanding job, so we tried to gear back in as August drew to a close and “back to school” required more and more of my attention.

Gifts of food were continuing to arrive, which we appreciated, but which created their own kind of stress. My friends from Dana Hall had set up one system, and then the room parents from our new school, Meadowbrook, started another. The meal was supposed to arrive by six, but somehow at the last minute I’d always be anxious about its arrival. Often something was missing, or we’d have to cook it further, which seems so simple in retrospect, but at the time anything beyond pulling off aluminum foil and portioning onto plates was too much for me. At least a few times by accident or schedule glitch no meal showed up at all, which increased the anxiety. The meal delivery was an extremely generous and kind gesture from the community but I was almost relieved when it stopped.

We ate very little after Charlotte’s death anyway. We also made a rule that we should not drink any alcohol, so Michael and I both lost weight. Then I started jogging every day, not because I cared about being fit—I just needed to do something.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.