Amelia Draws

I found a dead body when I was four.

Yes, this is a story about death, but not trauma or pain. No one was hurt. Which is not something we always get to say when we tell stories about death.

When I was four I lived in a country town and across the road from Mrs Shanks. Mrs Shanks was old or so my mum would tell me, and I knew that. I just didn’t know what that meant, what old was.

To me, Mrs Shanks was white – crisp white short sleeved blouses, pale skin, bright white hair and a hatred for the white winged cabbage moth.

She and I would garden together, pulling out weeds, chasing away the bastard cabbage moths, being told the plant names. Other times I would sit at her counter in her dark old kitchen with a drink and some biscuits chattering away.

There were times when Mrs Shanks was tired enough that she couldn’t leave her bed. On those days I would sit with her in her room. Her bed was very big, very brown and very old. Little Mrs Shanks would be propped up by mounds of white pillows. I sat on the chair beside her, which I guess was also big because my feet didn’t touch the ground.

I really, really liked Mrs Shanks. She was warm, fair, and friendly. She listened to my every word and asked me lots of questions. She smiled a lot. She made me feel important. That’s the best gift you can give to a four year old, to help them feel important.

It must have been around Christmas time when Mum sent me to deliver Mrs Shanks a wedge of fruitcake. I trotted up her steps and let myself in calling out as I did, but Mrs Shanks didn’t always hear me. I put the foil wrapped cake on the kitchen bench and went down the hall looking for her.

And l found her, in her big bed, propped up by forty pillows, her eyes shut, peacefully.

“Mrs Shanks?”…..
“Hello Mrs Shanks, its me Amelia?”

But there was no movement or response to be had. And l kinda knew there never would be. So I stood and watched her for a moment – she looked really still. I felt no pain in the room, it was peaceful.

Then at that moment the world caught up to my brain with a jolt and I ran back through the house, out the front door and across the road to tell my Mum that something was wrong with Mrs Shanks.

I don’t acrually know much more about Mrs Shanks outside of these memories. I don’t know if she had a family or had always lived in our town. I do know she had a profound effect on a little girl who 40 years later still chases away those bastard cabbage moths in memory of her old friend