Losing Mawsie

The first hard times came when Mawsie got too sick to take care of us. We didn’t know what was happening at first. We thought she just needed a rest or a little quiet. But when after three days she didn’t get up at all, just stayed in bed, her face to the wall, we knew something was bad wrong.

I sent Ethan out to fetch the widow woman down the road since she was the closest to doctoring we could think of. She come quick, carrying her satchel of roots and powders. She held Mawsie’s hand for a bit then took out a long brown cloth and dipped it in the pot of warm water she had us fetch. Then she reached in her satchel and took out something that looked like snuff. But it didn’t smell like snuff. It smelled worse. She sprinkled it on the cloth and wrapped it around Mawsie’s neck and fastened with a big safety pin.

All this time Mawsie didn’t make a sound. Her eyes were red where they was supposed to be white and her lips were kind of rolled back showing her gums which was also red looking. The widow woman brushed her hand acrost Mawsie’s eyes and begun to sing, her voice so soft we could hardly make out the words. But it seemed some comfort and Mawsie’s breath come slower and it seemed like she was going to sleep.

“She’s got to have water ever hour,” the widow woman said. “And quiet, so’s she can rest. Or she’ll die.”

Ethan and me looked at each other and then away. We couldn’t even think of being without Mawsie. She wasn’t our real ma, but she was all we had.