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This Old House

John RC Potter

    “Look at her...she’s not even crying!”
    One of Keith’s sisters had stated these words in an emphatic way. All eyes turned toward the front porch, where my grandmother was sitting in the same chair in which her youngest son, Keith, had always sat and watched the passing cars on the highway; because he could not go to school, it helped him pass the time by keeping track on paper the number of vehicles and other details. Keith would never sit in that chair and on that porch ever again. He had been a sickly child most of his short life until he passed away in his eleventh year.
    “She’s not even crying!” my aunt repeated again what she had just said to the rest of the family, gathered and grieving in the little house on the highway in the village of Brucefield that day in 1957.
    My grandfather, with tears running down his face, turned to his daughters and sons who were gathered with him and said, “Your mother is crying, you just cannot see it; it is more painful to cry inside than out.”
    My mother was there that day and in tears at the loss of her youngest brother, who had never gone to school because he was to some degree mentally retarded, a term that was used back then but would be considered politically incorrect now.
    In 1957 Mom was only 25 years old, a young mother and farm wife who already had three daughters in the space of four years – two toddlers and a baby. When my sister, Jo Ann, was born in 1956, my mother experienced postpartum depression that deepened and lengthed for many months due to a history of bad nerves. After sessions in the hospital and specific treatments for mental illness that were considered innovative at that time, by 1957 my mother was beginning to recover. Then her youngest brother, Keith - whom everyone in the family doted on - died after a short illness, casting yet another shadow over my mother’s life.
    During my childhood my sisters and I would ask our mother about Keith, the boy whose life had been too brief. In particular, I was quite fascinated with the boy that I saw in my mother’s family photo album. I was born in 1958, a year after Keith passed away, and for whatever reason felt a connection with him. I enjoyed hearing stories from my mother about Keith and how he loved to sit on the porch and count the cars that went by on the highway. I would wonder what it had been like for him to live a life largely at home, and somewhat limited by his mental abilities. I knew he was deeply loved by all in his family: for his siblings and parents he was their adored and special boy.
    There was another story related to Keith that my siblings and I never discussed with our mother. We were told by our cousins that they had heard a story about Keith and the reason for his impaired mental ability. If true, it meant that Keith had not been born mentally impaired; rather, that it happened due to an accident when he was a baby. Apparently, Keith had been left in the care of two of his older sisters when Grandma was not in the house. According to the story, Keith was left alone and rolled off the sofa onto the livingroom floor, sustaining a lump on his head; however, at that time it was not considered an injury with future complications. Our cousins told us that it was our mother who had left Keith unattended momentarily. My sisters and I later speculated that if this were true it may well account for our mother’s mental health issues that afflicted her life sporadically from her teenage years and throughout her entire life.
    When I was a teenager I began to do gardening for my maternal grandmother, whose house was just around the corner from the high school. In my final year of high school, I moved in with Grandma, whom I respected and loved as much as one would a parent. Living with my grandmother allowed me to walk to school in mere minutes and to go to my part-time job at a nearby convenience store.
    During breaks in the gardening or when living with my grandmother and having time to sit and chat in the evening, I would sometimes ask her about Keith, but never mentioned what I had heard as regards the possible reason for his mental impairment. However, my grandmother did tell me that although it was a great loss when Keith had died, it was also rather a relief, because she had wondered what would happen to him after she and my grandfather were no longer alive. It had been one of her greatest fears, not knowing what would happen to Keith without her.
    I recall a day in particular, sitting in Grandma’s attractive and neat livingroom, when we had been talking about Keith. My grandmother, who raised 11 children, was at all times a seemingly unsentimental and practical woman, as well as one of the wisest individuals I have ever known. On that day when we were talking about Keith, she peered across the room and into my eyes: Grandma told me that she had always wanted to write a story or book about her life, but suspected she would never do it. My grandmother then said that she hoped one day I would write a story about her life or at least about her youngest son, Keith, in order to keep alive the memory of his short life. Furthermore, that it should be called, ‘This Old House’ because that had been Keith’s favourite song for several years before he died: he would listen to that melody and happily sing along as he sat on the front porch counting cars and watching the world go by.

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