
08-01-2009, 01:45 AM
Extra short story I wrote the other night...
Dear God,
I watched my grandmother die today. She was lying in a bed, and looked really happy to see the family, then a really loud noise started coming out of one of the machines. It didn’t look all that important, all it was doing was drawing a line. I realized my grandmother was dead when my mother started crying. My uncle did too. It was weird to see him cry. It’s weird to watch any adult cry. I hope she’s doing okay up there with you. Tell her I love her. Please.
With Love,
Michael
-
The piece of paper she had been reading fell in an almost frolicking manner, spinning and twirling the couple of feet to the floor. The woman cupped her face in her hands, trying her hardest to hide from the world, and sobbed; quiet whimpers escaping from between her fingers and reverberating around the living room. It had only been two hours since they had returned from the hospital and the memory of her mother’s death was still fresh in her mind; still pounding at the floodgates that barred her tears from flowing over. How could it not be? It was impossible to get the memory of holding her hand as she passed out of her head; how it had gripped the very hand she was using to wipe the liquid from her cheeks, just before letting go for the last time. It was the most horrifying thing she had ever experienced.
She leaned back in the chair she had almost fallen into only a few minutes before and took a deep breath, taking a moment to balance her emotions in a delicate column that she hoped would hold for another day or two. “At least until the funeral,” she kept telling herself, knowing she wouldn’t be able to. Crying was her only release; her only way of expressing the immense amount of pain she was feeling. She concentrated on her duties though, going over and over her mental checklist of ‘post-kick-the-bucket chores’ as her mother had called them. Then out of nowhere her son lands a cheap shot, square on her jaw, with his letter.
She had found it sitting on the kitchen counter next to the mail she was going to place in the box (mostly thank you letters to friends of the family who had sent their best wishes for a swift recovery). It was in a plain envelope with neat handwriting on the front, but what stood out the most was the address. There were no numbers or street names, there was just one word: HEAVEN, in big bold letters, like it had been written with a marker. She almost laughed, thinking maybe her son was trying to cheer her up by doing something cute, but when she picked the envelope up she realized there was actually a letter inside. It broke every lock and barricade she had set up in her mind. It broke through everything and just let the tears fall freely.
She stared at the ceiling for a second and took another breath before standing. The letter had come to rest a few feet away on the floor and she kneeled now to pick it up, folding it back the way it had been. She stayed crouched there for a moment, looking at the plain piece of paper in her hands and thinking about its contents and what she should do with it. Should she keep it? Lock it away with her important documents like she used to do with his letters to Santa? She considered throwing it away, but immediately banished the thought. How could she even think about destroying anything that mentions her mother right now?
She sighed and tapped the letter against her palm, stood in a quick, smooth motion, and grabbed the envelope addressed to HEAVEN. She worked the letter back into the envelope as she walked out the front door and licked the glue as she crossed the front yard. Before she placed the letter in the mailbox she took a moment to remember everything she could about her mother. She thought about her childhood (her mother teaching her how to cross-stitch, how to make pancakes, how to read) and put it all into the letter as well. She thought about how much she had despised her mother’s lectures when she was caught sneaking out in high school, how that same woman had cried at her wedding while sitting in the front row, how she had flown across the country to be there when her son was born. She poured her soul out into the flimsy pieces of paper she held in her hand, and with a farewell kiss (placed directly on the word HEAVEN) and a single tear drop that fell from her chin to land on the envelope, she put it in the box and walked back into the house.
-
A couple of years later, well after the funeral, and well after the memory of the day his grandmother had died had faded, the woman’s son finds a letter in the mail. The envelope is folded and ragged looking, and has a drop of wax sealing it shut because the glue stopped working forever ago. There’s a faint red smear on the front that resembles a shade of lipstick his mother used to own, and a single wrinkled spot next to the stamp that looks as if someone had cried on it. Also, on the front, where the return address used to be, in bold letters, as if written by a marker, is the word: HEAVEN.
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