From the Relief Society Magazine, March 1966 –

The Search for Katie

By Lael J. Littke

The mailman brought two letters on the day Kathryn Carlson realized that she was no longer a person. One of them was addressed to her, a short note from her mother saying that Grandma Ames was failing fast and that it would be well if Kathryn could come right away. The other letter was for five-year-old Mimi. It was merely a form letter from a children’s book club, but Mimi was enchanted.

“Mama,” she marveled, gazing in wonderment at her own name on the envelope. “Mama, some body knows I’m a person.”

Kathryn put aside, for the moment, her somber thoughts of Grandma Ames. She smiled at the little girl who had just discovered that she was an individual and that someone in the wide world beyond her home recognized her as such. What could ever equal this discovery of self?

“I’m a person,” repeated Mimi, clutching the envelope tightly. ”Just like Daddy’s a person.”

“What about me?” Kathryn asked. “Am I not a person?”

“You’re a mother,” Mimi said. She looked again at her letter, clasped it to her small chest, and skipped off to her room to meditate about herself and the world.

Kathryn laughed softly to herself. So now she wasn’t a person.

Walking back to the sink to resume the dishwashing which had been interrupted by the arrival of the mailman, Kathryn suddenly felt her scalp prickle with something akin to fright.

Was she a person? How long had it been since she had thought of herself as a person, an individual personality, a self? She was in the habit of thinking of herself as a wife, a mother, a Sunday School teacher, P.T.A. president, cook, gardener, chauffeur, seamstress, scrub woman, comforter when knees were skinned or feelings bruised, dispenser of answers to questions ranging from John’s early morning “Where are my socks?” to Mimi’s unending “Why?” She was a chameleon creature, changing from one role to another as necessity demanded.

She was many things. But a person? An entity with needs and desires to be satisfied? Somewhere that self had been split up into so many fragments that it no longer existed. She was a forty-one-year-old mother of four children. But what had happened to the person she had once been?

Kathryn stared at her hands, submerged in the dishwater. Grandma would know what had happened to her. They had always understood each other, the aging woman and the blithe young girl Kathryn had been before she went away to school and marriage. She had been called Katie then.

Kathryn thoughtfully sloshed the dishcloth across a plate, remembering how she had run to Grandma when her parents couldn’t understand why she wanted to go to an art school in another state. After all, the college right there in town had an art department. Why did she want to leave home and go off somewhere so many miles away?

“Some folks are homebodies,” Grandma had said. “They figure the moonlight looks just the same on their side of the mountain as it does on the other side, so why go see? But some of us have to go away from all that’s familiar to find out more about ourselves and sharpen up our perception. Sort of hone ourselves on the whetstone of the world, you might say.” Grandma had smiled at Katie, the young, eager Katie, so impatient to be off to discover herself. “You’re so much like me, Katie. I wanted to go away, too, when I was young. I could sing a little, and I wanted to study for a concert career. But then I met Will Ames at a Church picnic and settled for a career that suited me just as well.” Grandma patted her granddaughter’s hand. “After all, the nicest part of going away is coming home again,” she said.

After Grandma had talked to Katie’s parents, they agreed to let her go to the art school she wanted. She had gone away and “honed” herself, and had been pleased by the new interests and talents she found within herself.

Then she met John Carlson and married him, settling down in that city over a thousand miles from her family. She had been happy, so happy that she didn’t even remember when the eager, independent young Katie had disappeared to be replaced by a middle-aged woman, a little overweight, a little tired and harassed, a little gray. A woman who scarcely ever thought of herself any more. A woman called Kathryn.

Kathryn’s reverie was broken by a tug at her skirt. It was one of the many small people who passed through the house all day long. One of Mimi’s friends.

“Mimi’s mother,” said the timid sprite, “where is Mimi?”

“I think she’s in her room, Mimi’s friend,” Kathryn said.

So we’re even, she chuckled to herself. Neither of us has an identity.

She watched the solemn little girl walk from the room.

I’m just Mimi’s mother to her, she thought. To Joann’s friends I’m Joann’s mother. I’m also Diane’s mother. And Bob’s. I’m John’s wife. But who am I really?

She didn’t tell her family that evening about not being a person. The children, from sixteen-year-old Joann to five-year-old Mimi, would just be puzzled.

And John? Was she a person to John? Or was she just someone who was always there? She decided not to mention it to him, either. It was something she needed to find out for herself.

Mimi showed the rest of the family her letter, slightly dog-eared by that time. Everyone laughed indulgently when Mimi refused to let anyone else so much as touch the precious envelope. Bob recalled how when he was a little kid (exactly two years ago) he had received a letter from Grandma Ames. He had been so proud, he said, and still had it in his treasure box.

Kathryn brought out the letter from her mother and read it to John and the children. Although none of them had seen Grandma more than four or five times, they were all sorry that she was ill. They agreed that Kathryn should go to her bedside as soon as possible. Of course they could get along while she was gone. She knew they were trying to make it easier for her to leave, but in her present touchy frame of mind she wondered if they would even miss her, except as a convenience.

Thinking about it later, after she was in bed, Kathryn decided the trip would serve several purposes, besides permitting her to pay her love and respect to the little grandmother who meant so much to her. She could, as Grandma had said years ago, once more remove herself from her familiar surroundings and perhaps rediscover who she was. Perhaps she could find out what had happened to Katie Ames, who had once been a person.

Grandma looked tiny and fragile in her enormous bed. She was ninety- two, but Kathryn still found it almost incomprehensible to think of her so quiet. Grandma who had always been so filled with vitality, who had scampered about fixing dinner for ten people even so recently as three years ago when Kathryn had last seen her.

”She’s not in any pain,” her mother whispered into Kathryn’s ear as they stood looking at Grandma. “It’s as if she just wore out all of a sudden.”

Kathryn squeezed back the tears and walked toward the bed. Her mother put a hand on her arm.

“She may not know you,” she cautioned. “Sometimes she’s a little vague. Sometimes she says she doesn’t know who she is.”

Kathryn nodded and walked to the bedside. She picked up the hand which lay inertly on the white coverlet.

“Grandma,” she said. “It’s Kathryn.”

Grandma opened her eyes slowly, as if she were very tired.

“Kathryn?” Her voice was like the tinkle of a tiny silvery bell.

She gazed at Kathryn through the blue, blue eyes which had been the envy of all of her granddaughters.

“Kathryn.” She sighed, a sound like the flutter of a bird’s wing. “I don’t know who I am any more.”

Mrs. Ames gave Kathryn a “see-what-I-mean” look. “Grandma,” she said, “you’d better sleep now.”

Grandma shifted restlessly. “Grandma,” she whispered. “Who is Grandma?” The frail hand picked at the coverlet. “If Will were here he would know who I am.”

“We’d better go now,” Kathryn’s mother said. “She shouldn’t get upset.”

“Let me stay just a few minutes. Mother,” Kathryn whispered. Her mother tiptoed from the room.

Kathryn looked at Grandma again. Couldn’t they see what she needed? Was it only because she, Kathryn, was so much like Grandma that she could understand? Was there no one else who could think of her as someone other than Grandma.”

“Of course you know who you are,” Kathryn said softly. “Melissa Mary Bartlett, the prettiest girl in town.”

The blue eyes looked questioningly at her.

“Melissa Mary, with the crow’s wing hair. Melissa Mary, with the summer sky eyes and the tiniest feet this side of the Rockies. Melissa Mary with the voice of an angel.”

A faraway look crept into Grandma’s eyes. “I could hit D above high C,” she whispered. She smiled. “Selina Courtney couldn’t do that. She got to A, once.”

Kathryn stroked the hair which was as soft and white as the down from the cottonwoods outside. “Remember, Melissa Mary, when you wore the cornflower blue dress at the Church picnic and saw your Will for the first time?”

Grandma had told her so many times the story of the picnic.

“I knew how I looked in that dress,” Grandma said. “Selina Courtney didn’t have a chance.” She closed her eyes and smiled to herself, remembering.

Kathryn thought she had gone to sleep. Then the blue eyes opened again.

“Kathryn.” The soft voice was barely audible. Grandma smiled and closed her eyes, and in repose her face was peaceful. “I wasn’t always Grandma,” she whispered, just before she drifted
off to sleep.

“I know,” said Kathryn. “I know.” She stroked the tiny hand she held until she was sure Grandma slept. “Goodbye, Melissa Mary,” she whispered as she tiptoed from the room.

Grandma died quietly in her sleep that night. Much as Kathryn would miss her, she was glad Grandma had gone on to rejoin her Will with the memory of herself as the singing, blue-eyed girl Will had first seen and loved. She knew Melissa Mary’s homecoming had been a happy one.

Kathryn thought a lot about herself and Grandma in the few days she stayed after the funeral. She had come hoping that Grandma could help her one more time, but, instead, she had been able to help Grandma, for which she felt uplifted and rewarded. Perhaps this was part of the puzzle. When you were young you concentrated on taking whatever would help you identify yourself as a person. As you grew older and became wiser and more mature, you began giving of yourself and in doing so forgot yourself. But did this make you less of a person? Was not the giving of oneself even better than the discovery of self, more fulfilling than the indulging of self? Did it not indicate that you had become a bigger and better person, possessing qualities and capabilities you had not dreamed you possessed?

Kathryn had not completely solved her problem by the time she boarded the train for her trip home, but she found it being pushed to the back of her mind by the prospects of seeing her family again.

They were waiting for her on the platform of the train station. John managed to look dignified despite his eager grin. Bob and Mimi waved joyfully, and Joann smiled dreamily at the train as it slowed and stopped.

Why, she’s like I used to be, Kathryn thought. Dreaming of the time she can board a train or plane and be off to see the world. And Diane, who stood there trying to be grownup but wanting to shout with joy like the younger children — Diane’s black hair was just like Katie’s had been once, and like Melissa Mary’s must have been.

Young Katie is gone, Kathryn thought, whisked away by time, yet she is preserved in my children. Here, then, was another part of the puzzle.

She scarcely had a chance to step from the train before the children swarmed over her, laughing, kissing her, welcoming her back.

“Mom,” said Bob, “It’s no fun at home without you there.”

Mimi handed her the tattered remnants of her letter, the symbol of her discovery that she was a person. “I want you to have this,” she whispered.

Kathryn’s heart was full as she listened to the happy chatter of their adventures in her absence. She could never doubt again but that she was a person, a Very Important Person, in their eyes. If Katie was gone, if she had been sacrificed to the needs of a growing family, then the compensations were well worth the loss.

But was she gone? What was she really, except an attitude, a state of mind, a fresh and eager and searching outlook on life? Could she not be recaptured, as Grandma after such a full life had recaptured a memory of a former identity just before she went on to meet her Will? Surely that old zest for seeking and learning must exist somewhere, mingled in with the busy wife, mother, Sunday School teacher, P.T.A. president, person, who was Kathryn.

The years that the children are dependent on you are so very brief, Kathryn thought. You brought them into the world and then were caught up in teaching and guiding and caring for them. Before you realized it they were going to school and then soon were off to seek their own places in the world, leaving you wondering what to do with this person who had been so happy and absorbed in the role of mother and all it involved, that she almost forgot there was any other way of life.

Mimi would be starting school in another month. Would not this, then, be a splendid time to rekindle Katie’s old interest in art, indulge in a few special classes, work a morning or two in her friend Clara’s interior decorating shop? She would have time to cater to John’s tastes in food, too, as she had done when they were first married, before they were involved in the peanut butter world. Perhaps she and John could even take that dreamed-of trip, to see if the moonlight on the rooftops of Paris was as exciting as it sounded.

Life was wonderful, Kathryn decided. The past had been busy and happy, and the years ahead were filled with promise, just as they had seemed to Katie so long ago. Nothing then, really, had happened to Katie, except that she had grown up.

John had been standing quietly to one side, waiting for the children to finish their greetings. Now he came forward and handed her a single red rose, just like the first flower he had ever given her.

“Welcome home, Katie,” he said, smiling down at her.

As she looked into his eyes and smiled back, Kathryn knew what Grandma meant when she said her Will would know who she was.