Nana's Clearing - A Child's View of the Death of Her Grandmother

Nana’s Clearing

Nana is dead.

Ranidae, a squat and jumpy five-year-old with black hair and eyes that Nana called toad skin, slipped out the door and headed toward the park.  Chips nipped from the buffet fell from her backpack at the first landing as she leapt from step to step; she stopped to reposition her load. Rani stuffed grapes in the pocket shaped like a nose and a juice box in each front foot. Into the frog’s head, she carefully layered the napkin she found by the coffee urn, chips from the counter, a tin, and the remains of the bag of M&Ms that didn’t fit in the bowl on the coffee table. Setting off again, she tucked Hermione, her last best friend and frog, beneath her arm, admiring her leg worn and dull from years of helping Ranidae suck her thumb. 

Running and jumping, Rani tried to catch the turtles and snakes that appeared and disappeared on the sidewalk as tree branches swayed in the after-nap sun. Ranidae raised Hermione high above her head, stretching to have the frog hold her hand. She turned right at the corner and right again at the next, never needing to cross a street before reaching Lily Pad Park.

The sidewalk melted into a path with soft shredded bark made from trees that once stood there tall. Ranidae spied the trail marker tree that braves once followed to lead her down the right path. She ducked beneath a branch, used her forearm to ward off another and shielded her eyes, when she turned west, onto a stretch with pickers and stickers that led into the sun. Nana told her that paths twist and turn and a moment in the sun will change to a moment in the shade, and life is one moment, then death. Nothing to be afraid of, she’d add. And, in one more bend, Rani and Hermione would reach the clearing that Nana loved.

The clearing was wide enough to show the sky, long enough for a creek with frogs that croaked as loud as the houseful of grownups she left behind. Ranidae heard from her Auntie Evangeline, who wore round, rimmed glasses and true red lips that Nana had croaked too.

Ranidae stopped next to the creek and sat down - brave-style, Nana called it. She pulled off her backpack and placed it on her lap. She zipped slowly and firmly, as Nana showed her, because the zipper sometimes got stuck going around one ear, and flew to the next, and sometimes got stuck again rounding to the other side of the other ear.  Rani laid out the napkin, placing a juice box on two sides. She made two clumps of candy, two clumps of grapes and two clumps of chips next to each.  She moved Hermione onto her lap, opened the tin and poured Nana on the other side of the napkin for a picnic in her favorite place for things that croak.

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Painting: Available
Artist: Mary Longe

The Clearing

11x14" Oil, The Clearing, WI
mary.longe@gmail.com

Learn more about the Trail Trees: Great Lakes Trail Tree Society