Amy's Journey

By Lillian Bursey

The story of one girls struggle with tuberculosis and her journey to recovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flanker Press
• Release date: Oct 12, 2010
• ISBN: 9781926881256

Lillian Bursey

Lillian (Lily) Bursey was born “around the Bay” when Newfoundland was a country. She now resides in St. John’s with her husband and near a few of their many grandchildren. While raising her family, she also fulfilled her goal to attend university, eventually graduating with a Master of Education (Counselling) degree from Acadia University, Nova Scotia. Until her retirement in 1997, she worked with disadvantaged families in the Dartmouth/Halifax area of Nova Scotia. Lily is a member of the St. John’s Taoist Tai Chi Society. She is also a member and former president of the Newfoundland Writers’ Guild and has contributed a poem to the Guild’s latest anthology (2006), A Charm Against the Pain, published by Flanker Press.

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Acknowledgements

PROLOGUE

Early Childhood in British Harbour

Amy, it’s time to come in for your bath, my grandmother, who I call Mom, shouts from the porch door. I’m playing marbles with my friend Leone and I don’t really want to have a bath in the middle of the day. But it’s Saturday afternoon, and I know I have no choice; so, I say goodbye to Leone. Entering the kitchen, I close the door and undress. Placed in front of the hot, black, cast iron stove is a round wooden tub filled with warm sudsy water. I sit in the tub for my weekly bath. Saturday afternoon, particularly in the summer, is special because after all the work is done for Sunday, Mom and I usually go to visit someone. Mom always says, Sunday is a day of rest." So, on Saturdays Mom, like most people in the harbour, cleans her house from top to bottom and prepares food to cook for Sunday dinner, after we come home from church.

Earlier in the day, I had seen Mom peeling the vegetables, putting the potatoes, carrots, and turnip, along with the cabbage, in a big enamel pan filled with cold water, now stored in the pantry, ready for our Sunday meal. Mom will also serve roast hen. But I won’t be eating any! When Mom was away visiting her sick cousin, my Uncle Gerald started tormenting me again, like he always does when he thinks he’ll get away with it. He called me to come over by the henhouse; he had something to show me. I thought he might have found new chickens. Instead, he grabbed me and held my back tight against him, pinning my arms to my sides. Roland’s got something to show you, he said. Uncle Roland was standing near the chopping block with a hen tucked under his arm. He was about to kill the hen for our Sunday dinner. Never had I seen a hen being killed, and I didn’t want to now. With my eyes closed tight, I began screaming at the top of my lungs, Let me go! Let me go! Within seconds, I heard the blow of the axe on the chopping block and knew Uncle Roland had chopped off its head.

When I looked, I felt frightened to see the headless hen running around the yard. Pulling away from my laughing uncle, I kicked his leg and ran into the house, yelling all the way, You brute! You brute! Uncle Gerald chased me up to my room where I had flung myself on the bed, sobbing into my pillow. He grabbed the pillow and held it over my face, smothering me. I could hear his loud laugh while I kicked and tried to scream. Finally, when I could hardly breathe, he let go of the pillow and left me alone.

Everyone knows Uncle Gerald teases me a lot. I’ve often heard Mom say, Gerald was only eight years old when Amy was born, so I think he’s jealous of her. That’s why he teases her so much. But, then, she always picks up for him by saying, Most of the time he’s good to her. I know that’s true. Uncle Gerald is good to me, because he plays with me lots of times, carrying me on his back and prancing around like a horse.

One night, I was almost asleep in the big featherbed I share with Mom when Uncle Gerald came into the room. In his hand was the biggest red apple I had ever seen. This is for you, he said as he put the apple beside me on the bed. Now, give Uncle Gerald a kiss. I hugged and kissed him good night. In the morning I awoke to the sweet smell of apple and saw my teeth marks on the partly eaten brown flesh of the fruit. I knew the steamer must have come and delivered supplies to the merchant, Mr. Anderson. Mom bought apples from his store.

I have always lived with my three uncles. Uncle Bob left home last year to work in Corner Brook and I really miss him – especially when I hear Mom say, Wherever Bob went, Amy was always tagging along with him. Mom also says she dreads the thought, but we might all have to move away from British Harbour some day, to Corner Brook. I hope that never happens. I would not want to leave my nanny goat, and all our sheep and hens.

Uncle Roland is the man of the house now. He doesn’t tease me as much as Uncle Gerald. But he has a quick temper, and if he asks me to help him I have to be careful to do things just right. Like when he is sawing logs on the wood horse and asks me to sit in the middle of the log to keep it steady while he saws. Sometimes I forget and shift around when he is sawing and that makes the saw jump off the wood. Then he shouts at me and gets red in the face. Other times, he is kind and gives me rides on his shoulders. He even takes me up over the hill where there are a lot of rotted tree stumps.

Ever since I asked Mom where babies come from and she told me, Babies come from the stumps of trees, I’ve been wishing to find a little brother or sister in a tree stump. So, sometimes Uncle Roland carries me on his shoulders and, with his sharp axe in hand, walks toward the wooded area not far from where we have picked blueberries and partridgeberries. As we come close to an area full of tree stumps, he says, I’ll chop gently because we don’t want to hurt the baby if there’s one inside.

When he’s finished chopping I’m excited and want to get down from his shoulders and see what’s inside. The stump is quite rotten and I tear at it until it falls apart, then hurry on to several other stumps Uncle Roland has chopped open. There’s no baby in these stumps, I complain, close to tears.

Don’t cry, Amy, he says. We’ll come back another day, and chop more stumps. Come along now and get on my shoulders and let’s see if we can find some frankum for you. After he cuts the hard, sticky frankum from the spruce tree with his pocket knife, he says, Remember, you have to suck it until it’s soft, then it’s easy to chew.

Now as I soak in the tub, I’m looking forward to visiting Aunt Sis, looking forward to sitting in her bright, clean kitchen, where the hooked mats on the freshly scrubbed wooden floor, and the shining black stove give a warm and cozy feeling. I’ll be happy to eat partridgeberry tarts, drink Rose’s Lime Juice, and listen to the adults talk as they drink their tea. Then, Aunt Sis will read the tea leaves in the bottom of their cups, telling them their fortunes.

I’ve heard her tell people things like, You will receive a sum of money in the near future; You will shake hands with a stranger; The man you are going to marry is tall, dark and handsome; Someone is coming to visit from over the water; (since there is only a pathway to British Harbour, and most people come to the harbour by boat, that was very likely to happen).

Mom always takes me with her when she goes visiting. I particularly like it when we go around the harbour to my Gommie’s house (my godmother). When we go to Gommie’s, Mom takes a little brown bag of sugar, because sugar is scarce since the war began – the grown-ups say it is rationed – and the extra is a treat for Gommie’s tea. Mom doesn’t take sugar in her tea.

Since there are no other children at Gommie’s, I sit and listen to the adults talk, and hear many stories about other people in the harbour, bits of gossip or truths that little ears should not hear. It was through overhearing the grown-ups talk that I’ve always known about my rejection by my father and other members of his family, particularly his mother. And that my mother, Barbara, was not married when I was born, that I am an illegitimate child. I don’t know Barbara very well because she had to leave the harbour after I was born, to earn a living. I’ve heard Mom say, Barbara is in service to a well-to-do family in St. John’s. Many times I’ve overheard her saying, Barbara was always a good girl, and she has no more reason to feel ashamed than the ones in the harbour who talk about her. Not all of them were lily-white when they got married.

Mom has been resting on the kitchen couch while I washed myself. Now she says, You’re daydreaming again, Amy. Here, let me wash your back, then hurry up and get dressed in your clean clothes and we’ll go visit Aunt Sis.

The Long and Lonely Journey

All aboard! All aboard! shouts the conductor. I hear the train hissing as it gets ready to pull out of the Corner Brook station. I am lying between the cool white sheets in my lower berth, curtained off from the other passengers, but I am very much aware of them. And their low, whispering voices confirm their interest in me: Just a child. On her way to the San." As the train pulls out of the station, I cannot hold back my tears.

I