"That's how some windows were wiped to perfection, through the use of newspapers." She said this with distinct naturalness, the type to create instant personal inadequacy. I am from a laughable generation, I know. We don't read and we're habitually late to appointments, school, dates, job interviews. I listened carefully to what she continued to say, "Ask your grandmother."
My grandmother is from another planetary universe if I think my mom's generation is frugal, obstinate and irritably outdated. Her mother was born in 1899(an epoch when witches could be casually spotted flying about nocturnal skies) I never met my great-grandmother although my mom, since the time I admitted to recognizing the importance of family unity, has taken the laborious responsibility to speak about her legacy with notable affection.
This is an extraordinarily effective way to transcend mortality: Hand-wash wool garments to feed five father-less children.
"Can you imagine what is like to wash monk's clothing with your hands? Have you ever felt the texture of these garments? And to survive with the money, the misery of payment they called 'money'?" Need-less-to-say, my mom's self-appointed responsibility to immortalize my great-grandmother are also demonstrations of the strength of women in the first half of the 20th century.
Would a husband's cruel abandonment lead a modern wife to kill herself? The answer, I'm afraid, isn't no. They would dive voluntarily into a mild depression(which they cure regularly via one-night stands, liquor, pills, shop therapy and binge eating) and emerge pathetically triumphant for brief moments every morning until a break from stubborn denial made them return to reality, crawling.
