Farewell Slumber

A peaceful new  
     slumber found,
   The pain endured, ceased
   Watching in fear
     Waiting with dread
The end, bitter yet sweet
   brings comfort for the finish
     grief for an irretrievable loss

Slumber disrupted
  tears, ache, sorrow
     presence missed
Saying farewell brings angst
   Unease of tears misunderstood
     Comforting kin
        Hurting alone

Tis not goodbye
   Refuse to release
     Memories of laughter
       Recollected passion for life,
         for both clan and comrades
Vestiges of your shadow
   linger in corners, behind doors

Day by day
  the ache recedes
    memories bring smiles
The pain of your absence never erased
  the life you lived
    championed,
      cherished,
        beloved.

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This weeks prompt Over at Velvet Verbosity for the 100 Word Challenge is “Slumber”. I wrote this prompt after my Facebook wall received numerous posts from friends, acquaintances, and bloggers who shared their loss of loved ones. Some sudden, some expected.

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Also linking up with Trifecta where they gave the word “New”, 3rd definition which says

3: having been in a relationship or condition but a short time

          

To An End

Ground abruptly introduced, the looming presence found her clawing, desperate. Pain invisible,  escape craved as fated violence, stretched wet knowing eyes. Shadowed and unknown, the gruesome end met her with swift, reeking pain.

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Wrote this in response to Trifecta’s 33 word challenge that went like this:

For this weekend’s Trifecta 33 word challenge:

“Write a horror story in 33 words, without the words blood, scream, died, death, knife, gun, or kill. Good luck.”

Can I Just Sleep? Please?

Pain

Sybil (what?)

Pain

Sybil (WHAT???)

Take your pick. My night was destroyed by a game of tag played by my still healing broken foot and that bitch “The Change”, aka Sybil. She put on the “I’m wide awake” persona at about 11:00 last night. Warm and Sleepy character was kicked out into the cold dark night and I desperately wanted to sleep, but it was not meant to be.

I took my vitamins and a dose of melatonin and went to bed to read some Harry Potter. Reading, a fan in a cool room, warming up in bed will sometimes allow Warm and Sleepy to come back for an encore. At 1:00 a.m. (THIS morning) I was a little teeny tiny bit sleepy. Light off, cell phone on vibrate, warm covers. I was ready.

Hey! I’m reaaaady!!! Nothin’.

Turn over, arm out of the covers, cross my feet, heavy sigh. Yeah. Let’s do this. Drifting….

BAM! Pain kicks in. Wrapping around the top of my foot to the back of my heal like  a hot cable searing through the muscle into the bone. My eyes shot open, sucking in air as I wince in pain, I shift again. Move the foot to the cool sheets, but that doesn’t do it. Toss, turn switch, cross, uncross, adjust. Nothin’. Like the tick of a grandfather clock the pain ticks and tocks away at my foot and my sleep.

Hot bath. Reading in the hot bath. That’s it! That always works. Grabbing Harry Potter and my “Old Lady Reading Glasses” (Thanks Sybil) I head to the bathroom and draw a scalding, steamy, wonderful tub of water nirvana. I climb in and hope to find my Life Melted, and the pain chased away.

Sweating, reading, relaxing and ready. I climb out, dry off get back in my jammies and bed. Determination is the only reason I finally found sleep sometime after 3:00 a.m. Of course, there were the intermittent appearances by Sybil’s hot and sweaty friend “Blaze”.

Sound sleep had me deep in it’s grip at 10:20 a.m. when My Captain woke me up and asked if I was going to Mass (which is at 11:00 a.m.) Of course, I was. I’m a good Catholic girl, and my good Catholic girl Blossom would be there for retrieval (she spent the night with her cousins). Coffee and Aleve gave me the necessary kick start.

So today, Super Bowl Sunday, a day where we invited family over for fabulous ribs slathered with my Super Mad BBQ sauces and chicken cooked on our Weber smoker, had the potential of being derailed by Sybil and Pain. I found my “go to hell I’m going to pretend like you’re not here” self, and managed to get the baked beans in the oven, the Bacon and Bleu Coleslaw assembled and some much needed cleaning done.

I soldiered through the day, and ended up having a pretty darn good day in spite of  the lousy night of sleep. We enjoyed a fantastic meal and drank some beer, cheered for whoever looked like the right team to cheer for, and laughed and scratched our heads at  the Super Bowl commercials.

With the day behind me and the week ahead,  Sybil and Pain you need to stay the hell out of my bed tonight. I want and need a good night of sleep and you are not welcome.

Enchantment to Heartbreak

The words, like a knife, sliced through jagged and uneven. In it’s wake there was irreparable damage and the life I had know would never be the same. The memory of how I learned my cousin was dead is unclear but the word suicide stands out stark and bold. I wasn’t sure I would ever breath again as the wind was knocked out of me so cleanly and the pain began so quickly and sharply.

The memories, once fond, happy and full of life were rendered to a state of doubt and wondering “Did I miss something?” As time has passed I realized the innocence of our childhood was pure. We roamed our grandparents ranch in a pack of cousins bent on discovery and freedom that most kids could never imagine. We grew up together and apart; together so much during the summer at the ranch or at one another’s homes where our lives were “enchanted”; apart during the school year where we lived our “regular” lives.

As we became teenagers and the focus of our life lens changed and shifted to a different perspective. I still cherished our friendship, but after our grandparents died it lacked the enchantment that the ranch brought to us. Boys, friends, places and thrills beyond our age had us traveling down different paths.

Her path must have been so painful and unbearable and I had no idea. Great gaps of time would existed between the occasions we would see each other and then an extraordinary gap and then she was gone. I know I’m not unique in the belief that I could have made a difference, but I’ll never really know, at least not in this lifetime. I loved her and wish I had told her.

Almost thirty years later, the wound is easily opened and will bleed profusely when the surface is disturbed. It still hurts in a place so deep it’s beyond description. Things happen in my life and I wonder how her life would be if she had not chosen to leave. My kids grew and I watched them blossom and find their own lives. I became a grandmother and I get to watch them being kids and growing. I adore and revel in the uniqueness of my family but sometimes I wish  she was here so we could share this beautiful time of life.

If I could go back and change it, I would find a way to save her. Somehow she would want to live because the anguish and heartbreak I, we, have endured is so unending. The weight of it bears down like a wet blanket, heavy and impossible to throw off.

The brightness I always see without fail though is her glorious smile. I imagine after all this time she is surely free and happy now and looks after all of us, praying from her place. I have to believe she’s at peace because I could not bear to believed she wasn’t. Those luminous glimmers make me smile.

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RemembeRED writing prompt:

“We all have them. Memories that we wish we could forget…things that we wish we could banish from our minds. Imagine that writing down your worst memory will free you of it.

What is it? – Why does it haunt you? – What could you have done differently?”