Shadow

I wanted to experiment with writing emotion. I decided to go with the one I've experienced the most recently and felt the deepest: Death/loss.

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Carrie Morgan was too young to remember her grandfather’s funeral. In fact, if you asked her about it, she probably would shrug it off and tell you it was “Sad, I guess.” She wouldn’t’ remember holding her mother’s trembling hand as they stood outside the church, greeting the family members as they fluttered in, one after another like black rose petals picked up and scattered by the wind. She wouldn’t remember being squeezed into the front pew, snuggly pressed between her mother and aunt just a few feet from the open casket. She wasn’t yet old enough to read all the words printed on the programs, which had managed to outline a full 82 years of life in less than 300 words. She wouldn’t remember standing in the graveyard, holding a rose, watching as they lowered the casket and her father said goodbye to his father; her grandmother’s anguished cries of “Edward, oh my Edward” fell on her deaf ears.

But what she did remember was growing up without her grandfather. Years after the funeral, she could recall the void left in her family by his absence. Her grandmother seemed to move slower, as if the weight of loneliness were too much for her to bear There was no joy at her grandparents’ house. Carrie could remember staring at the pictures hung on the walls and set on the coffee tables, waiting for her grandfather to somehow spring forth and re-introduce color into what had become a very grey adolescence.

One late afternoon, hen the whole world seemed still and quiet, Carrie found her grandmother sitting by the window in her old rocking chair gazing at nothing in particular on the other side of the glass panes. There was a squirrel which immediately caught the young girl’s attention as it darted from one end of the yard to the other, pausing only cock its head up and stare sideways back at the house. Still, her grandmother’s eyes were eerily vacant, her face emotionally hollow. She looked like a doll, Carrie remarked, only the craftsman had forgotten to paint her smile on. And although she couldn’t remember her grandfather’s funeral or draw on any pleasant memories to cheer her grandmother’s mood, she felt in that instant the cold chill of longing.

Carrie walked over to the her grandmother resigned to that rocking chair, reached down deep through her soul and pulled out a pinch of courage. “What do you miss most about him?” Her voice was so thin that it crumbled on her lips and the question tumbled to the floor – a jumbled mess of emotions. She thought abut asking again, but couldn’t find another bit of courage to draw upon. Instead, she took her grandmother’s hand in her own and just held it there. At first, her grandmother was unmoved. Her hand rested on top of Carrie as easily as a dove might land on a branch. But Carrie held it there, just reminding her grandmother that she was there. There for her.

After a moment of still observance, her grandmother sighed deeply. It was the type of sigh heavy with sadness; the type of sigh that burdened the person that breathed it and anyone within distance of the breath. Carrie felt that sigh. It hung in the air until her skin had absorbed it and it weighed down her very bones.

“Shadow.”

The word was so unexpected that Carrie was sure she hadn’t heard correctly. Truly, she answered, “I don’t understand.”

“I miss his shadow most.”

“But Grandma--,”

“When I had your grandfather with me, I loved everything about him: his smile, his eyes, his touch on my hand, his voice, even his snoring. But his shadow.. That was special. You see, even when we were alone, cuddled up in front of the fire our shadows would be dancing on the walls. And when we went to bed, he held me in his arms, and I felt safe under the covers. But on the wall, our shadows molded together to form one and I never felt closer to him. His shadow followed him wherever he went, and mine followed his. We were bonded by our love and our shadows were never far apart. And now that he’s gone, I miss that shadow. I miss that silent, constant reminder of his presence.”

A week later, after years of loneliness and waiting, Carrie’s grandmother went to meet her grandfather. And though she couldn’t remember any part of her grandfather’s funeral, Carrie remembered this one. She spent every minute looking for her grandmother’s shadow, but never saw it.

.:~o*'Kaylyn'*o~:.