Simply Nadia

Chapter 1

 You know that saying, 'Ignorance is bliss'? I've never understood how being ignorant could ever be a good thing. I mean how can it be a good thing if people make fun of ignorant people?

 It wasn't until this moment that I understood what it meant.

 I stared at my black shoes in the green grass, the dew from the grass made them glossy. I counted the drops trying to suppress my surrounds and hearing.

 1...2....3....4....5...6....7

 7 dew drops. Wasn't 7 supposed to be a lucky number?

 I certainly was not lucky.

 I glanced at my 3 year old cousin, Timmy Jr. He clutched the black pant leg of my  devastated uncle. His blue eye's met mine and I could tell he had absolutely no clue what was going on.

 The quote, 'Ignorance is bliss' flashed across my mind.

 Timmy was absolutely ignorant as to what was happening. He didn't understand why everyone was dressed in black. He didn't understand what the Pastor spoke about. He didn't understand what death of a loved one meant. He didn't understand what it would mean for him. That he would no longer have a loving Aunt to spoil him. He didn't understand what it meant for me. That I no longer had a tender, loving mother to guide me.

 I envied him for his ignorance.

 I envied the six year old me. I remembered going to one viewing before my Mother's, it was my great grandfather, who's name I don't even remember.

 I had only one memory of him. He sat with my Mother, Grandma, Grandpa, and I at a folding table; playing rummy and sipping coffee. That is the only memory of my great grandfather that I remember.

 When he died, I remembered crying in the room beside where his viewing was being held. I later asked my Grandpa, Poppy, why I had cried? I told him I was not close to my great grandfather, so why had I been crying?

 He told me it was the atmosphere. That even as young as I was, I could feel what others felt, even if I didn't understand it.

 A little while after that I soon got bored. My cousin, Marie and I played eye spy and colored in our coloring books. Once we were both bored of that, she dared me to go up to our great grandfathers casket.

 I refused. Not because I knew it would be wrong to do something like that as a dare, morally. But because I was scared. I was afraid that if I got too close he would suddenly come back to life and pop up out of the casket to scare me.

 Right now, I wished nothing more for that to be true. I wished that if I leaned over my mothers casket and looked at her that she would come back to life and scare me. That she would sit up and scream some horrible sound and then laugh and say she was only faking. That she was just pulling our leg and the joke was on us.

 Such a horrible thought, but I truly wished for it to be true. I wanted nothing more than it to be true.

                                                                                                 ~~~

 That night I lie in bed, sleepless. It wasn't one of those nights where I couldn't sleep because I was thinking of all the projects I had due the next day. One's that I had spent hours on and got hardly any of it done. It wasn't one of those nights that my mind swirled with thoughts.

 It was the opposite.

 My mind was blank. Completely numb. I felt dead inside staring at the little glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling that had been there since I was a child.

 At night I used to imagine what it would be like being able to touch them. I made it my mission that I would one day touch those stars. And I did when I was eight.

 I broke my ankle due to it. When the Doctor asked me what I did to break my ankle, I told him that I vowed to touch the stars and that I did.

 My Mother howled with laughter when I said this. She found it endearing that her eight year old daughter had jumped off her bed to touch the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling.

 I, however, did not find it endearing nor did I find her laughing at me funny either.

 I pouted for the rest of the time spent at the ER.

 My Mother read books to me while we waited on the doctor. She imitated the characters voices and gestures, which were absolutely ridiculous. It was her way of trying to cheer me up and make me laugh.

 I thought she was being stupid and annoying at the time. I look back on it now and realize what a wonderful Mother I truly had. Not a lot of parents would do such a thing for their child when they are going to have a pay astronomical amounts of money, just because their kid jumped off a bed. Not to mention what she did after reading, when she knew I was ignoring her.

 She slid onto the blue seat beside me, the white paper crackling under her weight. I turned my head away from her, refusing to look at her. I wanted to continue being angry. She slipped her arms around my small frame and laid her head on mine. I gave into her tricks and leaned into her warm body. She stroked my tangly, blonde hair saying nothing. She didn't need too. We sat like that for a while until she said, at last, "I'm sorry for laughing darling. You'll look back and remember this and you'll know why I laughed... Nadia, you keep reaching for those stars. Never give up on your vow love."