A Letter To Megis

Dear Meigs, It's October here now, and grandmother doesn't seem to be getting any better. Just last night, Dr. Blake tried to calm her down after another episode, but this time it was worse than the last. When we finally got her to drink her medicine, and all of us had gotten back into bed, it was three in the morning already. Dr. Blake doesn't seem to think the medicine is doing any good, the memories just seem to come back more vividly with every passing day. In the middle of the night yesterday, I found grandmother near the old Willow tree in nothing more than a thin nightdress in the cold moonlight. When I tried to usher her back to the house, she grabbed hold of my hand and store, intently into my eyes only to say, “Abia?”.Her sister passed away years ago and she always calls me Abia whenever I near her. The resemblance must be startling. Today, I decided to go back to the building that affected her so much. The school was huge with all these crosses on the walls. As I walked through the school halls, I could see images and files of writing scattered everywhere. I don't think anyone has been here for a while, it seems to be abandoned. Almost like everyone's forgotten all about it. When I picked up a file, I realized it was a record of names of all the children who had gone to the school. There were pages and pages and some of the files even had pictures of the children as well. It broke my heart to see all the pictures of young children - there were so many of them that I didn't even bother to count. I even saw grandmother in one of the pictures. It seemed she was stripped of her clothing and her hair was shaved so close to her head that I almost hadn't recognized her. She always went on about them, they were a gift from her father. Can you imagine never being able to see our Pa again? Poor grandmother. I remembered grandmother telling me years ago of a story of a young boy she knew in that school who had hung himself in the gym. She cried as she told me that the nuns and priests had gathered them all up and brought them into the gym to show them the scene. The worst part was that they had just left him hanging there, almost as if that was supposed to be a lesson they were supposed to teach grandmother and the other children! God forbid showing something like that to an 8-year-old! Can you imagine walking by a dead, rotten corpse every day, fearful that you might turn out the same? Not to mention the smell that would have arisen, it would have been enough to drive anyone insane! I shouldn't tell you this, but Dr. Blake visits grandmother almost every day now; her condition just seems to be getting worse. Last week, around 2 in the morning, I couldn't fall asleep. That exact morning, grandmother had gone back to the school. I followed her. She had run to the forest next to the school and seemed to be digging into the ground some 30 feet away from the school. The entire time she was crying and her hands and dress were covered in dirt - but she kept digging. I didn't know what to do and hadn't wanted to approach her for fear that she might have mistaken me for someone else and would have run away. I ran back to the house to call Dr. Blake and he immediately came over and brought grandmother back to the house and had me clean her up. When I later raised concerns over it, Dr. Blake informed me that when grandmother had been 12, her brother, Ziibi - who was 6 at the time - had passed away due to starvation after trying to escape from the school. When they found him, they dragged him back and kept him in one of the schools attics until he had eventually died there. When grandmother found out that her brother was dead, she dragged his body to the same spot where I found her last week and buried him there. No one seems to have ever found out about it. That must have really scarred grandmother. Dr. Blake told me that she goes there every night, yet this is the first time she had tried to dig his body back out. I asked why her brother had tried to run away and Dr. Blake told me that the staff at the school had been hitting him. He showed me pictures - there were these huge gashly scars on both his back and thighs. This was only because he couldn't speak and behave as well as the other children of his year. What terrible times - I'm glad we weren't around during that age. I'm terrified for grandmother, I don't think she will get any better, she just seems to be getting worse. Dr. Blake is trying to convince me to go back home to you and pa, but I told him I wanted to stay here in case anything were to happen. I'm keeping a close eye on her, yet am still terribly worried. I feel so lonely these days and grandmother's condition does not help. The neighbors tell me to pray, and hopefully, she will get better, but they know she won't get any better. I can see it in their chief's eyes, the scars are too deep for that. I just can't imagine our lives without grandmother. Could you? Aniya

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