A Box of Chocolates

Florence Fitzsimmons and Wilfred Lloyd Marr on the day they became engaged.

[They made it past their sixtieth wedding anniversary before my grandpa died. Grandma lived on for thirteen years after his death.]

My grandmother sat in her blue armchair all the long afternoons at Cottonwoods Extended Care. When I stopped by, after work, her gaze would be vacant, unseeing. Those last years, she was living within, in memory, rejecting her outer circumstances with utter finality.

One winter afternoon, she confided that she believed my grandfather may have strayed in his affections when they were young.

I was shocked. My grandparents' marriage had lasted over sixty years, had been a paragon and an inspiration to the family. It was inconceivable that their marriage may not have been as perfect as it seemed.

"What makes you think that?" I asked carefully.

"When he was bank manager, I went into his office one time, and there was a box of chocolates in the desk drawer, for his secretary", Grandma related, with a flash in her eyes.

From that, she suspected my grandfather had, at the very least, admired this woman.

Those were the hungry years, five children, low income, years when every dollar was stretched tight and my grandmother walked miles down to the train station to buy bruised bananas off the trains to make dessert for her children. A box of chocolates was an extravagant luxury, one my grandmother did not receive that year. So it causes one to wonder: did romance dim, during the tumultuous years of raising children? The grandma I knew was sweet and kind, but her children said she ruled them with an iron hand. So perhaps his secretary seemed comparatively serene. Perhaps he wondered "what if....?" I cant believe it went any further than a box of chocolates. My grandpa saw his marriage and his duty through. He was a gruff and silent presence at our noisy gatherings, sometimes was impatient at being comandeered by grandma. But he always had a twinkle in his eye and a shiny dime for the grandkids.

Maybe my grandma never knew, or even asked, whether or not his feelings had strayed. Maybe she was afraid to. Or maybe she confronted him angrily, invoked the Church, and he backed down, gave up, submitted.

Strange, the undercurrents running beneath the surface of peoples' lives, the vulnerabilities, the wonderings.

Odd that a box of chocolates represents a question, or perhaps belief, my grandmother carried into her 99th year.

That year, she also told me she was afraid of dying. I reassured her, "But Grandma, you've lived a wonderful life!"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. I'm afraid of going to hell."

I sat, astounded, at the knee of the woman who was the single greatest influence in my life. It was as if, she within and I without, were surveying two entirely different people.