"Lonely Girl" (The Afterward: Rocking in Her Chair)

Afterward to:

?Lonely Girl?

Rocking in Her Chair

She dreamt so high
that she never lost her dream
In the seeking of it,
And until the day she died?
she kept rocking in her chair
The memory of those far off days
That mattered?!


Note: #1395 7/23/006

[In Uniform] She had seen Murray once in his uniform, and kept a picture of him in it, at the time, he appeared as usual: a lean handsome figure of a young man: uniform pressed, comfortable, with an air of smoldering abrupt violence, and a ting of arrogance. She presupposed the Army put that in him it wasn?t noticeable before. He still had that warm nicety about him though.

[Overseas] It was not in her nature to differentiate between motives, whose results would be the same; he was who he was and perhaps he just was geared up for the war (is why he seemed different, after boot camp, and returning home before he went overseas to war)) WWII)); they had met, just once before he want overseas, his conduct was the same as when they first met, civilized, and polite. She found herself watching him with indifference, one with curiosity attached, as she might have looked upon her brothers going off to war. Perhaps spiritually unreasoned of his return, he?d not be the same. But when he was removed from her life, she saw it as for always; war does such things to folks you know.

[Cold Irony] Was it a judgment on her?? I don?t know, I suppose any one young woman is libel to write a foolish letter, as many did, in World War Two, what they would called a ?Dear John Letter.? I got one in Vietnam, I wanted to forget it, the relationship I had in Germany that is, I suppose as Murray may have thought, wipe it off your mind, clear the mind so you can fight. And then when he returned, she found her flame was still burning, she was dying to know if it could be rekindled as it was before. Perhaps she had to ask him, lest she see everyone on the street with his likeness, a never-ending task to bear. So she asked. Men hide the hurt, and play with the anger, and I suppose he was angry. Oh well, all these guesses, she was dying to know anyhow, and there was an ounce of probability the candle could be relit. But it wasn?t. And perhaps better for it, she may have put him in the stove, and I?d not be writing this letter. And so life goes on. Being 21-years old, pretty, slim, and knowing your window to life is wide open is quite a fabulous thing, we don?t think it will ever close, but slowly it does, we get old. Thus, she would look back, I do not think in regret, but in the fact she had a road of life to look back on.

[The Room] And so now, at 83-years old, she sat in the sofa chair I gave her, in a large room, containing a wide long table aligned, a built-in cabinet with memorabilia in front of her, several feet away. Here she napped occasionally in the hot or brisk afternoons, among the many objects she purchased. All her rooms bore many objects. She spent most of the day sitting in this chair. It was to this room she?d retire, and spend her last days in