By Carole Precious

"Have you ever seen Niagara Falls Martha?"

"Yes one time many years ago."

"Oh good" I thought. Otherwise I would figure out how to get her down there so that she could see one of the natural wonders of the world. It is only an hour and a half drive from her home and I think it is important that she gets to see them. Once before I told her that Niagara Falls had actually frozen over in 1911 and I had seen photographs of women dressed in long dresses just like hers standing at the base of the massive icy falls. I had already been figuring out that if she said she hadn’t seen them I would drive right up to the side of the falls, put on the flashing lights, help her out of my truck and we would walk together to the side so she could appreciate the sheer loud power, the pale green icy beauty, the overwhelming falls. Falling water emits negative ions and I wanted her to experience the pure joy of the waterfalls, and maybe, she would be slightly healed. But when I mentioned the falls again she said she would be afraid they would pull her in.

For at least five years I would drive every Wednesday to do "my loop" into Mennonite country just north of where I live dropping off birds to be processed and picking up eggs at Martha’s as well as at other Mennonite farms. I used to drop off quail eggs at a farm where the young woman confided in me that the doctors warned her not to have more children as it was too difficult on her body. At that farm I saw a dead horse with a big bloody gash on its abdomen laying beside the barn. One of the last times I went there she was standing on her porch putting clothes on the line, noticeably a few months pregnant. Another time I was driving along a dirt side road and came upon an accident at the corner of a busy road. The driver had somehow gotten tangled with a carriage wheel caught with a stop sign wedged between the wagon and the front wheel causing the horse to flip over on her side. Others stopped to help him put his wagon upright. The horse was trembling, had some nasty gashes on her, and was in shock. He hitched and he drove her home, apparently a distance of at least twenty miles. I have learned to keep quiet and to learn from how others live their lives. 

Of course a few years went by before Martha and I got to the stage of knowing each other’s names and of course it was I who first asked her her name and I told her that my name was Carole. I would describe her as "prickly". Every Wednesday I would approach her side door. She would see me coming and have my standing order of eggs ready. I would hand her the money and she would always count it in front of me to be sure I had given her the correct amount. In August I would always buy her gladiolas, carefully pulling them from a full bucket. In October the turkey poults that she had grown in a pen between the driveshed and the vegetable garden would become full size and sometimes I would order a fresh turkey from her. Often Martha would be kneeling in her garden. She would see me drive into her farm and quietly walk to the house to get my eggs from the basement. Every egg was perfect and clean. In the side yard her six grandchildren who lived also in the house, in an addition built onto the original brick home, would be playing in the yard, swinging on a tire hanging from a huge sugar maple or playing in a home made fort of stacked boards leaning against a tree trunk or carrying around terrier puppies or hauling the younger ones around in a wagon. Once I came there and a local teenage Mennonite girl was their mother’s helper. She was standing on the porch brushing her wet hair that fell almost to the back of her knees. The young girls wear braids stretching well below their waists. One day Martha had washed her hair and quickly put on a kerchief when she saw me coming. Her hair also was very long and so I asked her "Do you ever cut your hair?" "No", she said. "It is written in the Bible that we are not to cut our hair." The women always wear their hair tied back and hidden under a light gauze-like bonnet.

It was especially "during Covid" that I would bring Martha news of the outside world. Normally she would have travelled by horse and buggy to the nearby church on Sundays and occasionally she would travel 45 minutes to the nearby town of Elmira for some provisions but generally Martha lived at her farm. Once the health restrictions were in place as Covid was prevalent and the Mennonites would not agree to be vaccinated, they were no longer allowed to congregate inside. Weddings were limited to six immediate family members as others in the community would gather on the host farm and watch the marriage proceedings from the benches in their buggies. Funerals were also awkward, especially in the winter as people could proceed past the body outside only. 

I would bring Martha news from the "outside world" telling her about going food shopping with arrows on the aisle floors, lining up six feet behind the person in front of you outside in the winter to get into a bank. Gradually after at least four years, Martha and I advanced to the point of talking about the weather. Even though I live half an hour drive south of her, the weather could be quite different. Quite often her kitchen would smell so good as I approached and I would ask what she was baking and she would tell me. Being a very outgoing person it became almost my mission to try to get a little smile from Martha. She was so serious by nature. Gradually we developed a way together of touching on world events and I knew that in some lovely way I was like a lifeline of knowledge for Martha. Once I went there and she seemed even more serious than usual, explaining to me that she would not be available next Wednesday as she was going to a funeral of a relative. Her expression stayed the same. I later learned that a young man, his wife and young baby had been T boned by an impatient driver passing a car on a bend and all three had died in the buggy crash. Martha seemed to take all things in stride somehow in her own way and I admired her quiet demeanor. 

Then in October I approached the house and Martha didn’t come to the door. I even rang the doorbell and kind of looked toward the nearby kitchen. Eventually I heard the voice of her daughter in law calling to me from her side door and went over to see her. One of her youngest twin boys stood holding her skirt and she then said "I knew you would be coming today and have been looking out for you. Martha fell ill and is in the Fergus hospital. They have done tests on her and she has an inoperable brain tumour."  Tears flowed down my cheeks and in disbelief I left with my eggs. 

The next Wednesday Martha was home. She had been in the hospital for six days and I thought of how awful that would have been for her. She would have had to wear a hospital gown, sleep in a room with other patients, and endure strange tests. I was formally invited to visit her. I was ushered into the kitchen and she was sitting up in a special medical bed with rails that had been installed in the corner of the kitchen. The Mennonite community owns this bed and it is lent out to any families who need it. She was fully dressed and I sat in a chair beside her, chit chatting about anything that came to mind and occasionally looking at each other right in the eye. I knew from experience that brain tumours tend to grow quickly and so I asked if it would be OK if I came to visit her the following Wednesday and I promised not to stay too long. She said that she would like that. She would go upstairs each night to sleep in her bed with her husband Isaac. And so began the next stage of our friendship. Each Wednesday I would come into her warm cozy kitchen. I started to ask her personal questions about herself. She was born about thirty miles north of there in Linwood and had met Isaac when they were both young people working in Elmira. She had six children, three boys and three girls, and thirty-one grandchildren. The huge wood stove would keep the kitchen toasty. Someone was always ‘on duty’, a daughter in law, a neighbour, her daughter, a relative. I knew that I was the only non-Mennonite allowed in the house. Often the women would be baking. I always sat in the same chair. Martha was sitting on the sofa with her little grand daughter beside her, quietly holding her Grandma’s hand with her sweet little hand. I thought surely this is the most comforting sight I have ever seen. The little child was so quiet and content, playing with a little toy in one hand and holding her Grandma with the other. Meanwhile her daughter in law baked cookies called snowflakes coated with cocoanut rolling them out on the table and popping them into the wood stove. When she got tired Martha would lay in the special bed. My chair was beside this bed. I would show her photos on my phone of my latest painting. I was working on a Snowy Owl. "Martha have you ever seen a Snowy Owl?" "Yes I have. It was beautiful". I would always gently touch her leg covered in her long dress and was surprised to feel steel. She wore a brace on her left leg and I never knew that all these years. Of course I didn’t say anything. Each week I would ask if it would be all right for me to come back and always she said "Yes that would be fine." Sometimes I came and I could she see she was sleeping on her side in the bed so I would not go in. 

November came and went. Get well cards were displayed on a string above the foot of her kitchen bed and someone had given her an amaryllis, the kind that is a bulb in a kit that you plant in the pot with the little pouch of soil in the box. She had kept the box with the picture of the flower on the side. It was going to be a pink and white striped one. Each week I came by I could see the amaryllis gradually peak through the soil, growing a bit each week and I pondered…will Martha see her flower bloom? It was happily kept in the wide maple lined window sill right beside her bed. 

As grey and damp days rolled by I offered to help in any way I could. Isaac asked if I could drive them to town the next day and I agreed. Elmira was a good forty-five minute buggy ride each way so I was saving them a lot of time and Martha got tired out quickly now. First stop was at an office. Martha and I waited in the truck while Isaac and their eldest son walked into a yellow brick building, emerging twenty minutes later with two women. They approached the side door and I rolled down the window where Martha sat. "Hello Mrs. Martin, my name is... and this is my assistant who will be a witness."  I tried to be invisible sitting in the driver’s seat as the woman lawyer kindly explained and read the paperwork to Martha. "I’ll ask you to please sign this document which will mean that your husband will act on your behalf concerning all of your property in the event that you can no longer make decisions for yourself." Martha listened silently and when asked if she had any questions, she said "No."   Then she signed her name and this was an amazing moment for me. I have always loved calligraphy and I can tell so much about a person by looking at their hand writing. Our signature is one of the ways that we leave a mark in our life. I watched Martha sign her name  ’Mrs. Martha Martin’……written slowly and deliberately with the font of a grade four school girl. "And this document  that you’ll need to sign Mrs. Martin means that in the event you can no longer make decisions for yourself concerning your body and mind, that your husband Isaac Martin can act on your behalf."  Once again in the identical signature she methodically penned ‘Mrs. Martha Martin’. They left and we sat there barely saying a word. I was used to the silence with Martha and I liked it. I liked that we didn’t have to do small talk. Next stop was to the parking lot of the doctor’s office. Again Isaac and their son went into the office and Martha and I sat in the truck for a long time. I glanced over at her hands fidgeting with a little stain on her dress and jiggling her legs a bit and twitching her toes. I wondered what would I want to do if I knew I had a limited time to live. I finally asked Martha "What is your favourite colour?"  "Blue" she said. And so out of character, she asked me "What is your favourite colour Carole?" She actually mentioned me by name for the first time. "Green" I said. The two of us looked at each other and we actually laughed!!!! Martha was wearing a long dark blue dress and I was wearing a moss green sweater and pants. Martha was dressed in her going to town clothes, her blue dress to her ankles, a black hooded cloak, black full hat, black shoes and black stockings.

Eventually Isaac and the son emerged and we made one more stop at the pharmacy. We waited and they returned with pain medications. A couple days later I would return with Isaac to the pharmacy to get the very powerful medication and syringes for when it would get really bad.

And so it went. The weeks passed. The amaryllis still had a way to go. Martha stayed in the kitchen all of the time now, no longer able to climb the stairs to her bedroom, getting weaker, even more quiet. I knew what I knew and so did Martha. We never actually talked about her condition even once. When you grow up with animals you know what it is like as nature takes its course. Maybe it was a good thing that I would be travelling over the winter holidays. 

Sure enough I got the call from Nancy, Martha’s youngest daughter while I was away. I had asked if possible for them to let me know and they did. I would not be there for the visitation and funeral although I was invited and really that was probably for the best.

Yesterday I went to visit where Martha is buried. There she was, just an unmarked grave with fresh turf on top sprinkled with fresh snow and two lonely grave stones nearby at the yard of a simple Mennonite church within view of Martha’s farm. In the spring they will put a grave stone but I actually just loved to be alone with my friend, no one else around, no words needed. Here in this peaceful quiet snow- covered field next to a little tree line, protected from the winds is a sixty-five year old mother of six, a beloved wife and grandmother, not even wearing a wedding ring. She was an excellent gardener who did get to see a pink and white amaryllis bloom right before her eyes. 

This is the final resting place of my friend who I’ll stop by to visit... Mrs. Martha Martin

In Her Element, female Snowy Owl, 36”x36” oil on canvas. December 2022

Dedicated to Martha Martin.