Poems by Rose

Auntie Trudis, Sit First

 

Forgive the child who thought you worked for us, 

who saw your hands and named you by their use— 

the sweeping, serving, scrubbing after supper, 

and never thought to ask what you would choose. 

 

They told me, “She is family.” I remember 

how strangely that word stumbled in my head. 

For family rested, laughing at the table, 

while you were standing, serving us instead. 

 

You waited ’til each want had found an answer, 

’til every plate was passed, each glass was filled. 

You moved in small and silent circles, Auntie, 

as though your own desires had all been stilled. 

 

You were the last to sit. I see it clearly— 

soft steps, shy smile, sorrow in your eyes. 

You learned to make yourself so small and silent, 

as though even longing should apologize. 

 

And then there was that bell. God, how I hate it— 

that little handheld summons, sharp and slight. 

They did not even need to call you, Auntie; 

one ring, and you appeared within their sight. 

 

A ring—and you came walking from the kitchen. 

A ring—and once again you rose to stand. 

As though a piece of metal had more power 

than your own name, your rest, your own command. 

 

And once that little bell broke into silence. 

I like to think an angel broke the thing— 

that Heaven heard how they had summoned you 

and reached straight down to stop that goddamned ring. 

 

Perhaps some angel whispered, She has a name. 

Perhaps, for once, the house was forced to still. 

Perhaps that broken bell was Heaven’s mercy— 

a small rebellion made on your behalf. 

 

But they replaced it. 

Bought another. 

And God, I think that somehow hurts me more: 

even when mercy broke the thing that called you, 

they brought another summons through the door. 

 

Years later, when we crossed the sea returning, 

the years had changed us—yet you served there still. 

The world had widened out for everybody; 

for you, the same four walls, the same old will. 

 

That Sunday, everyone was dressed for worship, 

shoes shining, Sunday voices through the hall. 

I asked if you could come with us to church. 

He said no. 

As though you had no place at all. 

 

I was the last to leave. And there I saw you— 

alone upon the staircase in the dim. 

You cried so softly even grief seemed careful 

not to become another need for him. 

 

Auntie, I still see you on those stairs. 

That image has outlived the house, the years: 

everyone leaving there to pray for mercy 

while mercy sat behind them shedding tears. 

 

They went to kneel before a kneeling Savior— 

the Christ who washed another person’s feet. 

And left behind the woman who had served them 

to weep alone upon a shadowed seat. 

 

If Christ was anywhere that Sunday evening, 

I cannot think He waited in their pew. 

I think He sat beside you on that staircase 

and let the others go without you two. 

 

You told me once that men had wished to marry you, 

that love had tried to lead you somewhere new. 

But someone else decided you should stay there, 

as though your life were his to give or refuse. 

 

What right had any man to close that doorway? 

What right to tell your heart where it could go? 

They kept your hands, your labor, and your lifetime, 

then paid you—as though payment made it so. 

 

You raised their children, then you raised their children, 

then children born from children you had known. 

Your hands held up the weight of generations 

while you were scarcely handed back your own. 

 

From cradle into cradle, need to needing, 

from house to house, from hunger into care, 

we learned that you would always come when called for 

and rarely wondered what it cost you there. 

 

You made yourself so small that we grew larger. 

You bent so every branch could find the sun. 

Like roots beneath a tree that no one praises, 

you fed the fruit and asked to harvest none. 

 

They mistook meekness for a lack of power, 

your tenderness for something they could spend. 

But gentleness was never your surrender, 

and kindness never meant that you should bend. 

 

You had a thousand reasons to grow hardened, 

yet hardness never settled in your face. 

I knew you first through gentle, grieving eyes 

and that shy smile that somehow still held grace. 

 

That is the saint I carry when I name you— 

not halo, hymn, or statue dressed in gold, 

but someone given every cause for cruelty 

who somehow still chose kindness to uphold. 

 

I wish I’d known enough to see you sooner— 

the woman underneath the work and wear. 

I wish I’d pulled your chair out at the table 

and said, “Sit down. We’ll serve you. Leave it there.” 

 

I wish I could return to that dark Sunday 

and find you halfway up those shadowed stairs. 

I would not follow everyone to worship. 

I’d sit beside you in the darkness there. 

 

I’d say, “Let them go pray without us, Auntie. 

If God is good, then God already knows:

no hymn beneath a chapel roof is holier 

than staying with the one whom others chose 

to leave alone.” 

 

And I would tell you what I understand now: 

the shame was never yours to bear or hide. 

There was no smallness in the way you loved us. 

The smallness lived in those who stood beside 

 

your life and never asked what life you wanted, 

who loved your giving more than they loved you. 

They called you family while keeping you in service. 

A child could see those words could not be true. 

 

So hear me now, wherever you are resting: 

I see the woman childhood failed to see. 

Not hands beside a sink. Not someone summoned. 

Not what you gave to us— 

but who you were to me. 

 

And if I carry any quiet kindness, 

if tenderness still lives beneath my skin, 

if I know humble never means unworthy, 

then, Auntie, you are where that truth begins. 

 

I hope that Heaven has no bells to call you. 

No dishes wait. No footsteps seek you still. 

I hope God speaks your name and asks you softly, 

What do you want? 

And waits to hear your will. 

 

I hope a chair is waiting at His table— 

not last, not earned, not granted out of guilt. 

A place no one can ring you from, my Auntie, 

a rest no other hands can make you yield. 

 

You spent your whole life rising when they called you. 

You spent your whole life waiting for your turn. 

They made you last.

 

But you believed the promise: 

the last shall be the first. 

 

So sit, Auntie. 

 

Let us stand.