Where My Life Started

This short story was written for Helen Alcott

            I sit quietly atop this hill adorned with soft smelling flowers. I could never make a garden this beautiful. These are the flowers that are free. They didn’t grow like this in the city. Just like those flowers, neither did I.

            I left my loud, lighted home and came here. This is the first place I stumbled to when I moved out of my parent’s broken apartment at age eighteen.         

            When I first came here I sat in this same place that I am sitting now. I saw much of the same colors as I do now regardless of the years. Musk mellows were the first flowers that caught my sight. I was always drawn to their delicate purple and white petals the most. The majority of the field consisted of buttercup. If you looked closely enough you might even find some wild cherry at the very top near some shrubs. I loved watching all these flowers glow with the hummingbirds flying every which way they pleased.

            These flowers and these birds were my first friends here. Yet, you were my first human friend. I no longer felt alone.

            The rain tumbled over me and the flowers delicately that day. I loved how the rain smelled on that hill. I sat warm with a coat on over me and my polka dot umbrella keeping me dry. My newly bought country home was just down this peaceful hill.

            The birds were off resting their voices. I didn’t think anyone would be outside except for me but there you were walking home from your job at the mill. All the dust from the road turned wet with mud. I remember the ankles of your jeans were covered in it. You never minded puddles.

            I sung as loud as possible taking the birds place. Apparently I was even louder than the gentle rain. Was it your curiosity that asked me on that first date? You proposed to me a year later. We were married for fifty-four years and would have been more if you hadn’t been taken away from me.

            I hold the palms of my hands against your gravestone. With all the grace you have shown me in my life I won’t leave you now. I just have to keep up my patience and then, my love, I will be back with your sunlight of a smile.