Sarah's Legacy (17 page)

It was not clear to me, though I read every word she had written, whether or not Sarah ever truly found the contentment she had hoped for when she first came to New Brunswick.

There was no mention of anyone in her family visiting her or of her returning to her hometown of Brockville. She recorded each of parents' deaths with only a simple notation of the details followed by the words, “Rest in the Lord.”

It seemed to me that her entries grew more and more emotionless, and I thought that perhaps she had stopped keeping a diary altogether, not because there weren't things happening in her life, but because she cared too little about them to bother recording them.

The most surprising thing of all was coming to the last entry in the final book and finding the ink newer and brighter than all previous entries. When I read it, I realized why.

Dear Sarah,

I'm an old woman now, and foolish, so when I tell you how pleased I am that your mother named you after me, you'll just have to go along with it.

Someday, if you have taken the time to read through these journals, you will become the first and only family member to fully know my story. Probably, in this day and age, it seems much less shocking than it did years ago, but if you've any brain at all you'll understand nevertheless. (And if you've no brain, it's most unlikely that you've read far enough to see these words, so I needn't fear offending you.)

Well! I'm sorry we never met. I would have liked that, but I long ago came to a place where I just let things happen instead of trying to make them happen.

The world has changed a good deal since I looked at it with the eyes of youth, but I'll warrant there are two things that haven't changed at all. One of them is love, and the other one is heartbreak. You can't open a book or watch a television show or talk to a neighbour without hearing about one or the other or both.

I've learned at last that one will never prevent the other … unless we let it. And that should never be.

Live your life, child.

With love,

Sarah Wentworth

It wasn't a sad message, but as I closed the diary I found tears welling up in my eyes and spilling down my cheeks. I felt, somehow, as though I'd known Aunt Sarah, as if we'd spent long afternoons on the veranda drinking lemonade and talking.

I'd never known her and yet it seemed that I did. There, in the old hope chest, she'd managed to somehow leave me … well, herself!

I thought then of the contents of the hope chest, the hand-embroidered pillowslips and doilies, and something occurred to me. All of the items in there had been old except for one: the lavender quilt. And I somehow
knew
that Aunt Sarah had made that in her later years, that she had painstakingly sewn each stitch by hand — for me.

I went to the hope chest then, lifted the quilt out, and unfolded it for the first time. There, in the centre, circled by ladies with parasols, skilfully embroidered in dark gold thread, was my full name. Sarah May Gilmore.

I knew I would treasure it always, just as I would treasure its giver.

*
Later in 1922, Agnes McPhail changed her surname back to its original spelling, Macphail, after a visit to the family farm in Scotland.