May 29, 2011 THE UNNFINISHED IMAGE
As far as I know it was Father Coyne who bought the bell. It’s a loud bell that is rung by tapping a plunger on the top of an iron canopy. In those days, even in his small country rectory, it was customary to have a bell at the dinner table to call the housekeeper’s notice to the table needs. Since my grandmother occasionally served his table, he gave the bell to her when he retired.
I never knew of any culinary use for the bell. But when my grandmother was ill in bed she used it to summon my mother’s assistance. Mother ran up and down the stairs many times in those years. Even so, she said to me after grandma died, “I wonder if I’ve done enough.”
A generation passed. Mother’s last three months were spent in a hospital bed in the dining room back home. She only rang it in the night when necessary, but all her sons in turn gave instant attention to the sound of the same bell. Only a few years later dad had use of the bell for the same purpose. This time a live-in caregiver helped the sons provide the nighttime assistance the bell called for.
Today the bell sits on my office shelf, quite at home again in a rectory. Every now and then I ring it for no purpose at all. When I do, its familiar sound produces a shudder that rattles my backbone. It isn’t so much a visual memory that it evokes as a range of feelings. There are some primitive flashes of pain and suffering and loss; even more, in contrast to the harsh sound of the bell, there is a warmth of love given and love received. And, it also makes me wonder a little about the bell’s future use.