Worth Fighting For| B. Barnes

~The Memorial~

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One Year Later
Location: Bucharest, Romania
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Saturday
June 1, 2019
3:30 PM
~~~~~

"Happy Birthday to you..."

"Happy Birthday to you,"

"Happy Birthday Prințesa Ivory (Princess Ivory)...Happy Birthday to you!"

Eduardo shuddered as he looked down at his granddaughter's head stone and placed a bouquet of flowers down beside the stone.

"Happy 5th Birthday princess..."

One year.

It seemed impossible that around this time last year, more than half of the world's population had been wiped out just by the snap of some Alien's fingers. Following the snap, similar to what other countries had been doing, Romania had made a remembrance memorial for those who lost their lives during the snap. Although Eduardo still never knew whether Ivory survived or not, he didn't want his grandchild to go without being remembered. So he had a head stone placed for her in the remembrance memorial.

It was a beautiful headstone made of grey marble that had her picture on it...the last one he saw of her which so happened to be the one he stole from Ivy's house that day. Even though the Snap wasn't the day of Ivory's birthday, he still wanted to make it a point to recognize her birthday today.

Not to mention since there was nothing else left of Ivory, the memorial grounds was the only place Eduardo could go to pay his respects to his grandbaby in Peace.

No one else knew Eduardo had a stone placed for Ivory except for him. Ivy clearly didn't care enough to do something for the girl prior to the snap, so he took it upon himself to make sure Ivory was properly remembered.

In a world where Eduardo was so alone there was so many things that pained him...One of the biggest things being, He never got to pay his respects to Enrieta-Maria since Ivy refused to tell him where she was buried. But never knowing his grand daughter and knowing she was once out there and that now there wasn't a chance he'd ever get to meet her...that hurt him just as bad.

Losing a child to suicide while being incarcerated was one thing...but losing his grand baby too? His heart couldn't possibly take anymore.

Even though he had never known the girl a day in her life, he wanted to still show he cared about his granddaughter.

"How old was she?"

Eduardo jumped at hearing the sound of a stranger's voice. He sighed in relief at seeing it was just a woman who had probably also come to visit whoever she may have lost last year.

"I'm so sorry sir...I don't mean to pry..."

"It's quite alright." Eduardo replies. "We all lost something last year...the best thing we can do is support one another and stand together."

"That's right..." she replied back.

"She was my Granddaughter...Her name was Ivory...This year she would be five years old...she was about to turn four when it all happened."

"If you don't mind my asking...who did you lose?" Eduardo asks.

"I lost my son..." the woman says showing Eduardo a photo. "Nikolai...he was six years old."

"I'm so sorry about your son..."

"One minute, I'm making him a peanut butter and jelly for lunch...it was his favorite...Then I heard him yelling 'Mommy' and when I turned around he had been running towards me...I couldn't understand why he was so afraid...Not until I saw his hands turn to ash...Then he was gone."