The Window

photo from Bing Images (not mine)

 The Window

As I lay down on the brass bed I had inherited from my Great –Grandmother, I could feel the cool breeze coming through the open window from across the room.  I closed my eyes in an attempt to block out the last bits of sunlight still coming through the sheers. I was feeling so drained after the hectic day it had been.   I just simply wanted to rest.

My body tensed and my eyes grew heavy as my mind reeled with clouded memories.  “Could he really be gone?”  I thought to myself.  I was already missing him terribly.  The years he was in my life. The places we went. The things we did.  His smile,  his hugs, his infectious laughter.  All these things I was seeing as I was desperately trying to sleep.

I could feel the wind blowing harder in to the room and I could hear that it had begun to rain.  I thought I better get up and close the window because I did not want the carpet to get wet.

Just as I opened my eyes again, there she was, my Great-Grandmother! What was she doing here?  What did she want from me? After all, she had been dead since the 1980’s.

Surprisingly, I did not run in fear of seeing her there.  I suppose if anything, I was just in a state of shock.

She looked just like I remembered her.  Her white hair was gleaming, her large framed glasses partially on her nose and she was wearing a freshly ironed dress.  The only difference in her was she was now strong and standing erect, not in the wheel chair she was confined to before she died.

She spoke to me sweetly, “You have had a very rough day today. Everything is going to be ok with him you know?  I met him as he came into the light. All of us did. His momma,  your aunts, your friends, all of us.”

She smiled gently and continued, “I know you miss him honey, but he loves you as much now as he did two days ago.  He wanted you to know that because the only thing he could say to you was “Hi Shell”…he was just in such pain then, but he is not anymore. He is ok.  Be at peace and enjoy your life.”

I blinked for just a moment and in that very instant she was gone. 

The room was so dark now.  I moved toward the window  to finally shut it.  As I approached the panes I sighed and decided to let the breeze and yes, the rain to come in.  After all, I just got to visit with my long dead Great-Grandma Murray and even though I had just buried my Grandpa today, I knew for sure that he was ok and I would be too.

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Post script: Although, this piece is a work of fiction in some sense it isn’t.  I really did inherit a brass bed from my Great-Grandmother but it happened to not be the one I mentioned here and sadly it is now long gone.  Ironically, I have been “visited” by my Great-Grandmother Murray a couple of times since her death in the 80’s...she has also visited my Mother and a friend of mine.  She died when I was a sophomore in high school.  I know it may seem strange to some but it really is true. However, she did not visit me when my Grandpa died in 2000. His last words to me however, were indeed, “Hi Shell”…in fact that was the last words he said to anyone before he died.  Wasn’t I so lucky to have been the one?

copyright~MR aka Naila Moon of the Grey Wolf

Originally written August 11, 2008

Rewritten October 29, 2010