Stormy Skies (On Hold)

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Saturday, June 20th

Willow

            I stopped talking.

            There’s no point. Rose didn’t understand at first, and she still doesn’t quite get it. 

            Mom has turned into a wreck. She randomly explodes in fits of laughter or sobbing.

            My two best friends, Wendy and Heather, came rushing back with their families from their vacations when they heard. Last night, they came over and comforted us. Wendy sang me silly songs to try and cheer me up. Heather danced along. They both brought me back amazing souvenirs; Heather, a pair of earrings made from sea-glass from Cape Cod; and Wendy, a traditional Russian dress that was handmade in Russia.

            I sat and stared at them, giving them minute smiles.

            Today, it’s his memorial service.

            “Gerald Moore was a kind man, and a wonderful supporter of the community and his family. He will be missed dearly,” the priest at the church finishes. Heather and Wendy hold onto me, crying, while I stand there stiffly. The gathering proceeds outside, where everyone walks down the streets to the cemetery.

            The new gravestones are embedded in the ground, but the older ones are headstones looming above the grass. I guess it would look scary in the nighttime, but it doesn’t right now. 

            The worker at the cemetery had put the headstone into the ground earlier in the day, in the field where they honored military deaths. Everyone stands around it, with Rose, Mom and me in the front. For a while, nobody speaks. It’s Heather that breaks the silence.

            “Thank you for coming, everyone,” she begins. Everyone looks to her. I look at his name engraved in the stone. “It’s been a hard time for all of us, whether you’re family or friend, watching Gerald in the war. He was doing what he valued, protecting our country.”

            “If you’d like to step up and say a memory of him, you can do so,” Wendy adds. My heart swells for my friends. I guess I’m forgetting how much I love them.

            “Well, I do remember one time. Actually, it was when he met Tracy,” I hear his good friend Rob, say. I look up as he begins his story. Once his ends, another person begins. Soon everyone is remembering funny anecdotes, sad tales, and breathtaking adventures of Gerald Moore, my father.

            I look to my left. Mom is smiling and laughing at the stories being told, with just the smallest traces of tears. Her honey-blonde hair falls to her shoulders, and her brown glasses frame her eyes. She looks the happiest she has been since the power outage.

            I look down to my right to see little Rose soaking up every single account of her dad who died before she could have any memories with him. When she grows to understand the concept, I have no doubt she’ll be sad. But I realize that she’ll have all these loving recollections of him to fill that empty space in her life.

            I close my eyes and look down inside myself. I see nothing...but a small seedling. It’s the littlest seedling planted in dirt. It’s surrounded by darkness. As I concentrate harder, I see it perk up a bit. I open my eyes feeling something touching my elbow.

            It’s Heather, looking at me.

            “We’re heading back to my house for a celebration,” she says, smiling. Wendy appears at my other side.

            “Are you okay?” she asks. I nod my head.

            As I look back upon my dad’s grave, I see a small seedling poking above the grass. I wonder what it will grow into.  

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