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Emily hadn’t cried when Griffin passed on. She just sat next to him, a tender smile on her face as she held his hand and gently caressed his face with the other. Now, standing on the open hill under the darkening sky, she stared numbly at the small monument erected in his memory. She was so still; she seemed to be as much of a stone in the graveyard as the ones around her. Everyone was leaving. The only two that remained at Emily’s side where her children: Rose and Junior. When she showed no intention of uprooting herself from the spot, her daughter wrapped an arm around the dove. “Come on, Mom…” she prompted gently, “let’s go home and get some rest…you must be tired.” Junior rubbed his massive head against his mother’s side in agreement.
“Rose is right,” he added, “it’s been a long day, and it’s getting late as it is.” But Emily was silent. Her eyes seemed empty. She could feel that familiar pressure building up behind her eyes, blurring her vision and causing her small body to start shaking in the effort to hold back the tears. Griffin Bol: Son of Princes. His tombstone read. The love felt for him and by him inexpressible in words. A whimper left Emily’s quivering lips. She couldn’t stop herself.
“What am I supposed to do now?” She whispered, her rhetorical question lying heavily in the thick air, “What’s left…?” A mangled sob slipping from within her, Emily couldn’t hold back the tears. Her legs gave out beneath her and she fell to the ground, her fists clenching against the Earth. She didn’t even try to contain her sobs, but just let them burst free, falling down her face and leaving stains against her cheeks. “This can’t be it, it can’t be! I’ll wake up in the morning, and he’ll be by my side, like he always is…where he’s meant to be…where he needs to be. I can’t accept that I’ll never see him, feel him, or hear his voice ever again. He can’t…he can’t leave me here…not when I have so much longer to live my life. How am I…supposed to be expected to go on as if everything’s okay if he’s not here with me?”
“Mom…” Rose breathed, looking down at the broken women with sorrowful eyes. Unsure of what to say, she looked at Junior. He looked back at her, feeling exactly the same way. What could they say, really? Nothing was going to bring Griffin back.
Her crying never waned, and she looked like she’d snap in half with the force of her sobs. “You said you’d never hurt me…you promised you’d never do anything to hurt me! So why? So why?! It’s hurts…it’s hurts so badly…” Emily’s head bowed down until her forehead touched the ground, just wanting to curl into herself and disappear. Wanting this all to end. She felt like her heart was dying…like she was dying. But it was worse than that, because she was dying in a way that wouldn’t bring her any closer to seeing Griffin. She’d be alone…alone for the rest of her long, long life. Alone, surrounded by things that reminded her of the love she had lost. Her house, her possessions, the mountains, her neighbors…even her children. How was that fair? How was that just?
How was his decision to leave fair? How was his decision to abandon her just? “You could have stayed…you could have stayed here with me, and just forgotten about the rest of the world! So why? Why…”
In the end…they weren’t able to coax her away from the sight until she had fallen asleep in her sorrow, and Rose had managed to hoist her onto Junior’s back, where they carried her back home and tucked her into bed. Even in her sleep, a final tear rolled down her cheek.
“Who can say…why your heart cries…”
Icy Sapphire · Sun Nov 23, 2008 @ 02:56am · 0 Comments |
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