Mary Margaret Eddleweese | bennettsewellart

Mary Margaret

Eddleweese

2014

12 x 12 x 18

Come on in. I am so glad to see you, so many times over so many years. Everybody is already in the kitchen. That rabbit stew you brought looks real good. Did you catch them yourself?

Hattie Mae:

Mary Margaret’s old dog Elmo passed to the other side last year and this is her first “Come over and bring something” supper. It’s been a heavy year. She has been running from and dealing with the dark of her grief by repeated trips to her puppies’ homes, group travel with strangers, serving on non-profit organization boards, and she even volunteered for jury duty. With time and more time and more time, the darkness began to drain away, living an empty space that she began to look into. Sometimes she felt that this dark place was where Elmo had been hiding; coming out as a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of her eye, a faint movement of her bed at night, and the sound of his slippers coming down the hall, even rarely a faint voice that she’d heard so many times before, “Honey Bunch, what’s cooking for breakfast?”

Then one day, one part of her said to another part of her, “This food and drink and conversation that Elmo and I and our many friends had over the years that we enjoyed so much wasn’t really wasn’t about that. The real happiness and joy came from sharing the most precious thing that we have and that is time. Then the other part of her said to the first part, ”It’s time for you to redo and rego. I’m going to have a “Come Over and bring something” supper.”

I’m speaking to you from a hole in the dirt between the big roots of the oak tree in the front yard. Mr. Oak and I share our time, he has more than I do, but he and I both get a great deal of pleasure together being in the world.

I wrote a little ditty from all of us, Mary Margaret, Mr. Oak Tree and me to you.

Catch me if you can to our shared joy.

I may be gone before you know I am.

Tomorrow, today, and yesterday

That’s the way you think I pass.