Thirty-six years ago, I was nineteen years old and going to college. My grandmother, Hilda Gerbe, was fast approaching seventy and somehow she knew her days were numbered. She was still working hard as she had done each and every day of her life. (Three short years later she would die from a massive stroke.) She said to me, “I would like to see the ocean one more time before I die. I haven’t seen it in over thirty years.” She would then tell me how she had won many a swimming competition when she was a young woman swimming in the Hudson River. Even back then I couldn’t imagine that you could have ever swam in that water! I am eternally grateful that I didn’t put off taking her until it was too late, and that I took her to Jones Beach the very next week. After watching her staring silently at the water for hours, I jotted down the following poem that I stumbled across today, while looking for some other papers. I thought I would share it with you.
Lone Grey Woman
Lone grey woman
worn and tired
staring at the ocean tides
wondering
if this would be the last time
watching these waters flow…
The handful of sand
she holds tightly to
still
seeps through
and still…
she smiles
knowing within her
still lies
the soul
of a newborn child.
Lone grey woman
workhorse of the world
lies
still smiling…
still dying….
still very much alive…