Challenge: Alternate Timeline - Prompt: Madame President
(FIONA is dressed all in black. It is MARCIA’S memorial.)
FIONA
Thank you all for coming today. As you know, I was very close to my grandmother, even more so when she got sick. It was like a role reversal. She taught me how to be a person when I was younger, and I was helping her remain a person for as long as possible, even with her mind leaving her. I’m sure most of you know the past three years have been very rough on our family, but most of all on her. Society doesn’t take kindly to people who don’t function like they are “supposed” to and my grandmother didn’t understand why people would be mean or talk down to her, because she believed she was behaving as she should.
My grandma was a loving person. Even at the end, she cared deeply about the well being of others, event when she couldn’t remember her own name. That’s the kind of person she was, throughout her life, and it kills me to think that many people didn’t see that in her passed the disease.
Marcia Briley Stag, born 1925 to Gertrude and Phillip Jenson, lived to be 94 years old. She is survived by her two brothers Ben and Joe, three daughters and their spouses Lauren and Jake, Beth and Gail, and Sarah and Tim and seven grandchildren: Megan, Kelly, Ryan, Jeremy, Salvatore, Regan, and me - Fiona.
My grandma always treated me with respect, from when I was little through my teenage years until adulthood, which she unfortunately did not see much of. She was proud of all her children and grandchildren. She went to all of Megan’s debates, made sure Ryan had enough canvases to paint, and always said that Regan would grow up to be the first (or second) female president of the US.
Kelly was over twice a week for 10 years, learning German from her. When Jeremy got on the varsity soccer team, she made sure to make every game and she invested in Salvatore’s graphic design company after he graduated. She was a remarkable, generous, kind woman. And I am going to miss her very much.