The Ladies Page

The Country School I attended is now someone's house, the wild myrtle by the side of the road lost to road widening, and the horse and buggy, wagons, and sleighs replaced by trucks, cars, and busses, but I miss nothing as much as the wild myrtle. When spring comes how I would like to run down that dirt road again and find afresh the tiny blue blossoms which we so admired and appreciated. Now, I ask myself, why my Vinca Minor growing beside what is left of the old woodshed doesn't seem to be nearly as lovely as the wild mrytle of my childhood? All the information I dig up on the family of mrytles seems to indicate that THIS is it. And yet it doesn't seem to be.

Could this be another one of my moods bringing back memories of myrtle that was really Vinca Minor? We find ourselves in this mood more and more as we grow older. And isn't it really a dangerous thing, being so bound to the past as to lose some of the present? When the children are grown and away from home for some of the Holidays we find ourselves more than a little sad. We just do not want to remind ourselves that if we had that many people around for very long we would be fit for a hospital bed.

This was about my experience the last Thanksgiving weekend. We had thirteen people in our house for four days. It was something to be remembered and cherished but when it was all over with I was ill for ten days with an abscessed tooth. So - it would seem - we have some new lessons to be learned - how to grow older gracefully. I will never forget one dear old lady we knew who was told be her daughters and daughter-in-laws one Thanksgiving Day, 'Now, you sit down, Mother. You have done it all these years. Let us take over now.' I shall never forget how she sat in her chair, straight-backed and fighting the tears. She had been laid aside, and she thought it the most cruel blow she could be given, when her children considered it only kindness and thoughtfulness. How hard it is to let go of the helm and see someone else take our place, and yet, how thankful we should be there is someone to take over.

But I must ask the question, does someone among our readers know, is there old fashioned wild mrytle growing somewhere near you? Perhaps I will seem a little more reasonable to myself if I find that there is. Is it growing in your woods?