The Magic Mirror

by Michael Gemignani

times my father looked up toward my mother, and my mother looked up toward my father. Then they both looked up at the same time, and their eyes met. I could see a tear run down my mother=s cheek. At last, my father spoke. ASon, your mother and I have never been able to give you much, but we have done the best we could. I think that you have come to understand that we love you very much, despite the ways in which we may have failed you.

  AYou ran away. Your mother and I were hurt deeply that you would leave us without even saying goodbye. We searched for you every day, hoping you would return, or that we could at least learn what happened to you.@

  My father paused, and I could see a tear running down his cheek too. My mother remained silent.

  Then my father looked into my eyes and spoke again. ABut you did come back, and I sense you learned much while you were away. I think you know now that we do truly love you.

  AOur lives are moving toward their close. Your life is opening up before you. Your mother and I could stay here, and we could allow you to leave again. But you would now be concerned about our welfare in ways that you would not have been before.

  AIf we go to the farm, you will feel better able to take the job Robin offered you, and you would not have to worry about our house falling down around us, or our becoming ill with no one to help us. Instead, we could instead help both you and those good people who took you in and whose son you returned to them.

  AAs for the forest, it has been our friend and our enemy for many years. Its life has been woven into our lives. To lose the forest is to lose something of ourselves.@

  My father stopped and looked over at my mother who was now crying quietly. ABut time changes, and needs change. Having the money from selling the trees will help us live into our old age without being a burden to you and will set you free to make your own way into whatever opportunities the future might give you.

  AWe will move to the farm, and we will sell half of the trees that we own. That will, I hope, leave enough trees for the forest to grow back again. Our efforts to hold the forest back from our house is evidence enough that the forest can recover so long as we do not wound it fatally.

  AAnd so, you may take the job at the farm, and your mother and I will move there too as soon as you have a place ready for us. You may tell Robin that we will sell our land and the timber on it, if half the trees are left standing. He can take care of the details. But your mother and I want to be gone before the woodsmen come. We do not want to see our house destroyed, and we do not want to see our trees cut down. Humble though it may be, we want to remember this place as it was, and we will not return to it.@

  Now it was my turn to be silent. I was seized by a mixture of grief because of what my parents were giving up for my sake, of hope because I knew that my parents would be better off on the farm, and excitement because I was stepping into a new and responsible life of my own. My parents, in their love for me, were, for my welfare, giving up much of what they valued. This was as powerful a lesson in love as any I had had in my search for Robin.

  Words were hard to find to express my emotions. AThank you. I don=t know what else to say, but I hope that you will be happy with your move. I will be there for you every day.

  AAlso, I am offering you the chance to work on the farm. I think you might really enjoy it, just as I enjoyed it the short time I lived with Martha and Samuel. They, too, will be there as your friends. You will not have the forest, but you will have other things to keep you company and give you pleasure. You will no longer have to live alone.@

  My mother spoke. AYour father and I have been happy living as we did with the forest and what lives in it to give us pleasure. But I am certain we will enjoy the farm. I look forward to helping take care of the animals, and we will be happy having you nearby, knowing that you are enjoying yourself.@

  ASo,@ my father said, Anow you have your answer for Robin. Let=s get on with what needs to be done.@

  And so we did.

  The Death of Samuel

  When Robin was traveling, I was invited to use his bedroom, but I did not feel comfortable doing so. I realized that if I had not found Robin, or if he had refused to return home, that room could have been mine. I would have become the son that Martha and Samuel would have lost. But I did find Robin, and he did return. So, even in his absence, his bedroom still was his alone.

  This meant that I shared with my parents the mobile home that Robin had installed for them on the farm. Fortunately, it had slightly more space than the house we had left behind, so the crowding was no more than I was used to. Moreover, I was up early and out for most of the day tending to chores, so my parents and I were not constantly tripping over one another.

  My parents also quickly adjusted to a new routine feeding the pigs, collecting eggs, and milking the cows. Martha spent most of her time taking care of Samuel, whose health was rapidly failing.

  The magic mirror had foretold that Samuel did not have long to live, or so it seemed. When he had peered into the mirror, he could not see his reflection. He took this to mean that he would die within a fairly short time. Thus, he asked that I return within three months, even if I had not found Robin so that there would be someone to care for his beloved wife once he was gone.

  When I came to live on the farm, there could be no question that Samuel was weaker than when I had lived with him earlier. He spent most of the day in bed, and when he got up, he was using a cane to support himself. He fell more than once, to the our general dismay, but, fortunately, he did not break anything. In his pride, he wanted to do as much for himself as possible, but even simple acts such as shaving were taking longer and longer, and his behavior became ever more confused. Within three weeks of my moving to the farm, Samuel was unable to stand and had to remain either in bed or in a wheelchair.

  The burden of caring for Samuel fell mostly on Martha. But she was not strong enough to lift him by herself, so I had to help her transfer him from his bed to the wheelchair and back again. He joined us at mealtime, but he ate less and less until it seemed he was surviving without eating at all.

  Martha sometimes asked Samuel if he wanted to go to a hospital where they might better care for him and find a remedy for his failing heart. Samuel always shook his head in response.

  I think Martha herself did not want Samuel to go to the hospital. She knew that the doctors there would do all they could to keep him alive, and their efforts would bring unwelcome discomfort and pain, whereas now, though he was dying, he remained with his beloved wife who had the blessing of caring for him herself in his final days. If he was to die, he would die at home in the arms of those he loved and who loved him.

  How difficult it must have been for Martha, but her love for Samuel would allow no less. It reminded me of the dear couple, Hiram and Emily, each of whom cared more about the other than they did for themselves.

  Martha had been married to Samuel for more years than I had been alive, and they had been through a great deal together. They had found joy in their animals and crops and shared their sorrow when Robin ran away. If they had chosen to write a book about their life together, I am certain it would have made a long and wondrous story. It was their story, and now I was, in a small way, a part of it. And in helping Martha, I was learning more about what it means to love and what it costs to love.

  If I had been Martha would I have been tempted to leave because I could not bear to see the one I loved losing his vitality and intelligence, indeed, losing all the wonderful attributes that she had treasured in him and that had made their marriage not only bearable but mutually enriching and supportive? The Samuel on whom Martha was lavishing such loving care was no longer the man she had married, at least in outward appearance and action. At times, he scarcely seemed to recognize her. But if he did not know who she was, she knew who he was. Her love for him could never bring her to leave him, or to cease to care for him no matter how much effort and courage it required of her.
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  Robin returned from a business trip and recognized that his father had only days to live. He apologized to his mother that he had been gone at a time when she needed him. He told her that he would have returned earlier if he had known how serious Samuel=s condition was, but that he would not leave her now so long as she needed him close by.

  Thus, Robin shared in caring for Samuel, and I was able to devote more time to managing the farm. Robin helped Martha gently lift his father into a wheelchair and guide him to the kitchen for meals, even though Samuel now did not even lift his head when food was placed in front of him. Robin even helped bathe his father and clean him when he soiled the diapers that he wore in his second infancy. How far such actions were from the life Robin had lived as a prosperous banker. And which life gave Robin greater satisfaction? We never discussed the matter. It was much too personal. But he did not run away, even though he might have asserted that essential business still required him to travel.

  Robin could, however, have hired others to care for his father. He chose not to, taking the burden on himself. This may have been atonement for his running away, but it was, more likely, to prove to his parents that he truly loved them. Robin, too, learned much about love in his travels with us.

  When Samuel died, Martha was holding his hand. Robin and I were there in the room. My parents had offered to do all of the farm chores so that I could be present on the last day of Samuel=s life. Samuel=s eyes were closed. His breathing was shallow, then intermittent, then it stopped altogether. Martha wept softly. Robin went over and put his hand on her shoulder. I stood silently by the bed.

  The funeral was simple. Samuel was buried in the ground he had worked all his adult life. Robin had picked out the spot on a slight elevation on which Samuel had often stood to admire his land. Yet, as Robin said in the eulogy, Samuel did not admire the land because of any financial riches it brought him. He admired it because it because of the spiritual riches he drew from it. To him, the farm was a living being, and with its life it nourished not only Samuel and his family, but all those whose harvests it fed. Samuel believed the farm was far more than just a means to earn a living.

  We walked slowly back to the house. Martha asked that she be buried next to Samuel when her turn came to die. Robin promised that the tiny cemetery that he had created would always remain hallowed ground.

  The mirror had been right about Samuel. He died only three months after Robin returned home. Would he have been able to defy the fate the mirror predicted for him? Perhaps, but I doubt he would have wanted to. He knew that we all must die sometime. He had lived a full life, and when he died his story was concluded. It was a beautiful story that Martha could retell over and over again in her heart as she waited for her own time to come. In the meantime, Robin and I, and, yes, my parents, would care for her and the farm.

  A Glad Reunion

  After Samuel=s death, Robin stayed at home to help his mother grieve, and, no doubt, to grieve himself. It was only as Samuel=s life approached its end that he grew truly close to his father and come to appreciate his greatness. No, Samuel had never amassed a fortune, nor had he garnered any power or substance in worldly terms, but he had loved his wife and his son, and he had achieved a deeper wisdom and inner harmony through that love and through the constancy of his work on the farm. Robin glimpsed this wisdom and harmony in his dying father, and, in the depths of his soul, he wanted this for himself, even though he did not yet truly comprehend it. Such wisdom and harmony