Unruffled Grieving
(A short story on grieving, based on realism)
The music went on in her head, you could see it in her smile, her laughter, her face, in the dusk softly, that she enjoyed life—that awesome gift, so many think was given by chance; the dusk was peopled with glamorous old memories, some disasters, and things like that, and if they were just glamorous enough, there he was…her childhood husband, now dead for five years (and now she was in her 40s). There she was, an inch beyond the window of marooned grief, motionless, windless, in a lilac dream, at peace, his face fading, ceasing and without turning her head, she said:
“Isn’t that you…? (she slurred)”
“What?” someone rejoined?
“His name is …,” she couldn’t repeat.
She sat quiet and still for a moment. In the residing room, then moved about slowly, setting the table for dinner.
“And do you think that’ll do any good,” a voice said.
The music went on in her head softly. Outside the snow was heavy a few people gossiped in a car nearby, you could see a television program on in the house across the street—through its window, in a shrill steady breathing, she seemed to have felt his presence, yes he was there, a sort of consternation overtook her, but who would believe her if she said so, she kind of dozed placidly to a corner of the house, as if to keep the moment alive? And then dinner came, and then after she prevailed on her own to lie down after dinner, drowsy—she thought the curtains moved, stirred faintly, and then a shadow, “It’s like this every year,” she muttered. “It always does me good to know he’s still around, thank the Lord, I suppose he’s busy otherwise.”
The evening went on, and she looked a little spent, and her daughter told her so, she then tiptoed out of her mother’s room and down the stairs, and drew her chair out from behind the dinning room table, and just sat there listening for a while, and the evening drew delicacy, impalpable.
“I know he’s here,” said the young daughter unruffled, “there is a kind of electricity about it,” she mumbled. “Ma says she believes in the soul— it never dies, it even comes back now and then to visit, to check on things…” she was talking as if to her father, as if he might say something as if he was there: so, she told him boldly she believed he might be around, boldly but in a whisper “We all miss you dad, but grandpa has been around to help some.” Perhaps she was musing, I don’t know, who’s to say?
A faint breeze came from the curtains, like a long sigh, moved gravely across the house, then withered to nothingness, like the scent of flowers on a windy day, and she thought, as her mother had often thought, “Who would have dreamed of inventing life, but God?”
No: 655 (12-29-2010); “Who will write this story of love, if I don’t, so I must?” Dlsiluk
Dedicated to: SB
A Dog Knows
Thoughts are deeper than spoken words—
Emotions, deeper than all one’s thoughts,
Soul to soul, a dog knows
What unto them (—selves) was love!
For the Doggy/12-29-2010 (No: 2886) Dlsiluk
