Memories

Regardless of what was happening to her, Millie would tell you this: take care of yourself. Not because someone told you to. Not because you're performing for an audience, but because you looked in the mirror and decided maybe for the first time, maybe for the hundredth, that you are worth the effort. The tribute to Millie is last to first, sorry about that...

These segments of my posted memory are totally out of sync… I want to close with something my mother said to me. My mother, Elsie was not a warm woman. She was born in 1915 and raised in a world that had no patience for softness. She did not hug me often. She did not say I love you. I don't think the words existed in her vocabulary the way they existed in mine. But she told the truth always, even when the truth was a door you didn't want to walk through. One day, when I was about 23, young, exhausted, up to my elbows in diapers and dishes, and the daily machinery of a household that everyone enjoyed, but no one helped operate. She looked at me across the kitchen table and said, "Al, a woman alone is just a woman. A man alone is an emergency." I laughed. I laughed because it was funny. And because laughter was cheaper than crying, and because my mother's delivery was impeccable, dry as toast, sharp as glass.

She did get a cat. A gray tabby named Mi Amor, who sat on her lap purring like a small engine when her beloved Lucy or Reggie weren’t on it, remembering things, sitting with those memories like old friends who came for a visit. A woman alone is not just a woman. A woman alone after everything she has survived and carried and built and lost and rebuilt is a cathedral, and she doesn't need anyone to come in and rearrange the pews. I still can’t wrap my head around why Millie decided to let go of it all, but I do know it was not my place to try to rearrange the pews.

Then, suddenly, Millie, with her friend Debbie, began to construct a life that belonged entirely to her. Beautiful in a sad way, which is to say it was beautiful in an honest way. A beautiful, sacred, entirely sufficient life. Her bed was the right firmness… on both sides, because both sides were hers now. Her mornings started when she decided they would start. She read. She spent hours on her laptop. She continued to devote herself to helping others, animals and humans included. Now I must be fair: Millicent Whillock was many things, and she loved “talk, talk story,” but she was not unfair. At least she tried not to be. She had many, many friends, was a hoot at a party, loved her “girls,” and yet always seemed alone. For all of the chaos, day in and day out, caused by the remodeling, the construction, the hustle and bustle, she dearly loved the activity despite the required complaining. And she missed it dearly.

When I first met Millie, she impressed me as a small woman, not tall, but she had a presence that made rooms feel smaller. In a good way, like she filled them up just by standing there. She listened, she had the kind of smile that made you feel like you were the only person in the room, and the kind of mind that remembered everything, every conversation you'd had with her, going back to when the two of you first met. She had a mind like a steel trap and a heart like an open window. After Ron died, I didn’t hear from her for quite a long time. Millie grieved the way women of our generation grieve. Quietly, thoroughly. For a couple of years, she wore dark colors. Not because anyone expected her to, because she wasn't ready for brightness yet. Grief has its own wardrobe. And Millie respected the dress code. That’s grief. It doesn’t make sense.

Oh Millie, what a delight you are. You opened up your beautiful home several times to Chuck Izzy and me. It’s been almost 12 years. We have kept in touched through messenger and texting all these years with an occasional visit now and then. You definitely impacted a lot of people and animals in your community. I’m so glad you went on your Safari with your family,what wonderful memories they have. Because of you and Your impact that you had on people they will continue passing on that shining torch. Love you!Tracy,Chuck & Izzy