Free Of Time and Memory by Don J. Snyder Page A

inside of. At one moment its heartache was distant and immeasurable, and in the next it was there, right in front of Peggy, on the streets of her small town. Down along Broad Street, past the school yard where the swings move slightly in the soft wind, there is the Wimmer house, the little brick house with the gable above the front door and the flag with its single star in the front window. In the lighted living room on any night, people sit in front of the radio. The war has been over for three years now. The son who used to
live
in this
living room
has been dead for almost four years. The people in this room once waited for him to write to them from the war, and then they waited for his body to be returned from France. Now life is going on without him. The patterns of a day are once again holding together despite the awful loss. This is one of the things that are difficult to make sense of. Isn’t this the
definition
of sadness to a young girl like Peggy? The way that life goes on after a loved one is lost seems to be almost as sad as the loss itself.

BOOK TWO

Chapter Eleven
    T he Grandview Hospital, Sellersville, Pennsylvania. Room 9. A man with a purple face is sleeping on one bed. The other bed is empty. I joke with a nurse that when my generation is old there won’t be an empty bed in any hospital in America. “I’ll leave you alone,” she whispers.
    I see the two large windows that my mother was looking out of when she died on August 27, 1950. Today they are streaked with rain but on a sunny August afternoon they would have showed Peggy green hills, farms and silos, the highway running back home, back to everything that she had known and trusted in her life and believed she would be a part of for a very long time. From this room she could have seen a long, long way.
    The hospital records begin with this account:
    16 days ago, patient was delivered of twins. The delivery was preceded by toxemia of pregnancy which was manifested by swelling of face and legs, elevation of blood pressure and albumin in the urine. She went into spontaneous labor and twins were extracted by low forcep application. The obstetrician, Dr. Edward Wright, stated she did not have excessive bleeding but several days post partum wasgiven 1 quart of blood and on discharge from the hospital she was said to have 47% hemoglobin and RBC of 3,000. She did not improve at home and was admitted to this hospital at 3:19 p.m. on August 27.
    19 yr. old female routinely admitted to S.P. #9, brought via Lansdale ambulance. Sent in by Dr. P. T. Moyer to be under medical service of Dr. Peters. Pt. looks very pale and tired. Slight vaginal bleeding. B.P. 166/90.
    4 p.m. request for blood work sent to lab. stat.
    4:09 p.m. visited by Dr. Peters.
    4:30 p.m. 500cc w. c. blood started I.V. by Dr. Peters—running very well—
    4:45 p.m. pt. [patient] complaining of “queer feeling in head” “feels hot all over”—blood stopped. Dr. Peters called—respiration becoming extremely labored.
    4:48 Caff.Sod.Benz. GR 7½ IV. given by Dr. Peters.
    4:50 Patient not responsive—R.H.S. pronounced dead by Dr. Peters.
    I am reading these notations for the fifth time when the man with the purple face awakens and looks at me.
    Dr. P. T. Moyer is dead. Dr. Peters is dead. Dr. Wright is dead.
    â€œEveryone is dead,” I tell the man with the purple face. “I waited too long.”
    He looks at me with bloodshot eyes. I believe that my mumbling has frightened him. I tell him I am sorry and make my way home.
    .  .  .
    Tom Pugles never heard the story of his sister’s sleepover when the girls rode in his father’s truck to pick up fruits and vegetables for his market. When I recount this story, it brings a light to his eyes. We are sitting at a square table in Zoto’s Diner in Line Lexington and he is telling me about the trip to Canada that he and my father took together after the war, before my