I did see
some resemblance.
Mother’s story is all the more remarkable to me when I consider that she had
contracted bacterial meningitis at age eighteen. At that time, there were no available
antibiotics. Penicillin wasn’t widely used until the mid-1940s. My grandparents were told
their daughter wouldn’t survive the night. Well, she obviously did, but the young girl in
the bed next to my mother’s died of the same disease, and this event had a profound
effect on Mother. Because her life had been spared, she developed a sense of compassion
not only for the sick and dying, but for the living. She taught my siblings and me to have
an attitude of gratefulness and generosity and to always be kind to others.
Several years before Mother’s stroke-induced inability to speak, she shared a dream
she had experienced while in the hospital, fighting for her life at this young age. She said,
“People were trying to pull me over a wall, but I wouldn’t go, Carol. They kept tugging at
me, and then I saw a brilliant light emanating from a tunnel. I wanted to investigate, but
something held me back.” She told me about this incident only once, but from what I’ve
read and heard, it seems consistent with those of many others who had a near-death
experience. I have to believe it wasn’t her time to leave her earthly life.
Because of the depth of his love for Mother, my father took care of her and all her
expenses while she recuperated in the hospital and, later, at home. They married shortly
after her recovery. I remember asking Daddy, when he was recounting this story to me
for the umpteenth time, “Did you and Mommy have a song you liked more than all the
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others you’ve played?”
“Now that is an easy question to answer, Carol,” he said. “It is ‘When the World Was
Young.’ It was a popular 1950’s French song, with music by Philippe-Gérard and lyrics
by Angèle Vannie. It was recorded by the incomparable Edith Piaf, often called the Little
Sparrow, because she is as tiny as most girls are in grade school. She is only four-feet-
eight-inches tall, but has a voice that can bring a man to tears. And she’s done just that
every time your mother and I have heard her sing our song.” He’d lift his eyes to the
ceiling and hum the melody. “Ah, the apple trees, sunlit memories. Where the hammock
swung, on our backs we'd lie, looking at the sky, till the stars were strung.”
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