SOCIAL STUDIES, Book One - an excerpt
JACOB'S SEVEN LETTERS - pages 229 - 234
I am Jacob Tyndal, the son of Marie and Thomas Tyndal. I spent my growing up years in a small northern town called Monteith. I never knew my mother. She died July 9, 1942 on the day I was born.
My father was employed by the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services in the Monteith Correctional Complex in Iroquois Falls, a small town on the banks of the Abitibi River in Northern Ontario. Grandma Ellie told me that before he took on that job he was a young farmer who was good at working with the animals but when his young wife died he floundered.
"Sure, he lost a lot of money, Jacob, but worse than that he lost his will to live and this wasn't something he could borrow from a bank. Tom was a lost soul," Grandma said.
I don't remember anything about life on the farm but Gram told me that's because I spent very little time there with my father. My Grandma Ellie was a widow who lived alone in a little white frame house in Monteith. It was she who carried me, the newborn, from the hospital to her home.
Throughout the first two years of my life my only contact with my father was when every second weekend Gram would take me to his farm. I wish I could remember those visits.
When the farm sold my father started working at the Monteith Correctional Complex. He moved into the only rooming house in town just a few houses away from my Grandma's little house so by the time I was three I was able to visit with him more often. I remember holding Gram's hand and being led up the creaky steps to the second floor. I remember Gram knocking on the brown door while I stood beside her on the landing. I remember my father opening his door and saying, "Hello son". I wish I could remember him lifting me up into his arms but I don't.
I came home from school one afternoon when I was seven. The quiet scared me.
"Gram, I'm home. Where are you?"
Gram was always home when I returned from school. She was the only constant in my life. Gram was the one who loved me. She sent me to school with clean clothes and a sharp mind that wanted to learn. She took me to the Baptist Church Sunday School classes where I learned all about another Jacob who went to sleep with his head on a stone and dreamed of a ladder upon which angels of God were ascending and descending from Heaven.
I remember asking Grandma Ellie, "Gram, am I named after this Jacob in the Bible?"
"I don't know, son," Gram replied. "But throughout the time your mother carried you inside her womb she would tell everyone that little Jacob would soon arrive."
When I discovered that it was my mother who had given me my name and when I learned the story of Jacob's stone pillow, the two happenings somehow melded and, though I did not understand why, stones became very important to me.
"Gram, where are you?" I shouted that world-changing day.
When I couldn't find her I went next door. My neighbour took me in her car to the hospital in Iroquois Falls where I saw my father. He was bent over in a waiting room chair. I saw his shoulders shaking. Fear filled my body.
"Where's Gram?"
"My father raised his head. I saw his tear-soaked face. I pounded his arm and shouted, "Where's Gram?"
"She paid her dues, son. A better mother never lived."
"Where is she?" I demanded.
"She's gone, son, just like my father, my wife, and my farm. It's my punishment. I was not a good husband. I was not a good son. Now everything that ever mattered to me in my life is gone!"
"I'm still here, dad," I whispered through my seven-year old tears. "Don't I matter?"
I guess he didn't hear me.
SOCIAL STUDIES, Book One contains twelve short stories all based on contemporary social issues. This book is the first in a series of three.
You will find all three, SOCIAL STUDIES, Books one, two, and three in Kindle and Paperback formats on all Amazon sites.
You will also find them on my Amazon author's page at https://amazon.com/author/audreyaustin
Or you will find SOCIAL STUDIES, Book One, Dying to be Popular directly at https://www.amazon.ca/SOCIAL-STUDIES-Dying-Popular-Eleven/dp/0978023889/ref=sr_1_1?crid=TVA1J1HBDDNF&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XziDaJAVHgwQZDJSailJrKiPgadh1gOfTeSt_dxlgUnGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.fNKy6D_QNbyfY-KDe8Sq4Nf6fvG7SbWx09MvRgWfdoY&dib_tag=se&keywords=Audrey+Austin+social+studies+book+one+dying+to+be+popular&qid=1768839316&s=books&sprefix=audrey+austin+social+studies+book+one+dying+to+be+popular%2Cstripbooks%2C119&sr=1-1
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