Today is a sad day for me and Harry the llama. I’ve shed some tears.
We lost a dear friend. Her name was Margaret and she was 92 years old and until about a month ago she was living independently in her little house on the farm of her daughter in Virginia. I had known her daughter for some years after ‘meeting’ in blog world some 15 or more years ago. When Margaret turned 90, her daughter asked people to send cards. Well, of course Harry and I rose to that occasion and sent her a card and a Harry t-shirt. She swiftly posed in it, beaming into the camera.
Soon after, she and Harry became pen pals. I of course helped but it was all Harry’s words-telling Margaret of the goings on of the farm. Margaret would share stories, weather reports and she had a wonderful sense of humor. And she knew how to write a proper letter, something many in today’s modern world don’t. I’m old enough and went to a grade school where we were taught how to write a proper letter.
Getting Margaret’s letters in the mail also brought me great joy. And while I considered Margaret a friend to me, and Harry, I also felt like I had another mother for a brief time. I told her that seeing her lovely handwriting gave me a jolt, because it brought back all the letters my own mother had sent me during my days at college or away in NYC or where ever I was living at the time.
About a month ago, Margaret took a fall. She needed surgery. She was placed in a rehab facility near her home so her daughter and family were able to see her regularly. And of course upon hearing this, Harry immediately began his Harry the Llama Letter Campaign. I’m so glad he did. He wrote her every day the first week, short little cards. We all prayed that Margaret would be able to go home. But the fall and surgery take a toll on an elder. Through those days in rehab, she never lost her sense of humor, and never turned dour. At some point, I sent her a llama doll, and she had the doll placed on her basket of letters and cards, and told everyone Harry was the Protector of the Cards. She loved to tell people about her pen pal, Harry. She had sent Harry a red knit scarf for his outings into the village and in time, I drew her a piece of art of Harry wearing his scarf. She cherished it.
In the last couple weeks, Margaret developed bleeding and they could not determine what it was and more surgeries were out of the question, and Margaret was having none of it. But she remained her true self. After a couple bouts in the ER, she returned to rehab last week. We all hoped she could continue to grow strong enough to go home.
She died this morning. I had just been thinking as I did chores, giving hay to Harry, what should we send Margaret today, Harry? Harry did not respond. I think he probably knew before me.
There is a part of me that would like to drive to Virginia with a llama in a red scarf, to walk on her farm in her honor.
No matter how old you are, or how young you are, or what species you are-you can make impactful dents in another creature’s heart. I don’t think Margaret knew how much her letters meant to me, I told her daughter often. Margaret loved the letters but she initially didn’t want Harry to be overwhelmed and feel obligated to write. But Harry, and I, do everything we want, and we loved writing the letters and imagining a sweet, elder woman on a rural cow farm in Virginia getting an envelope from Harry the Llama.
I have saved all the letters. I will send them to her daughter as a memento of the beautiful friendship her mother had with a llama. I am not sure what Harry and I will do with ourselves without our pen pal.
