Author : Leeuna Foster
As I again lifted my shovel overhead...
a sudden lack of strength in my arms prevented me from striking another blow. The shovel dropped from my useless fingers into the ruined flowerbed.My legs would no longer support my bulky frame and I collapsed upon my knees among the broken and bleeding Irises. The tears that had been gouging against the backs of my eyelids finally broke free and streamed down my face. I wrapped my arms around my bulging belly and rocked back and forth. My tears dripped onto the crushed purple petals of the flowers my husband had loved so much, and this made me cry even harder. I could smell the damp earth and the fragrant flowers. A cloud passed over the sun and yet I still felt its warmth across my shoulders. I bit down hard on my bottom lip and tasted the blood, like warm copper upon my tongue. The dam had broken. I cried out all the tears that ever was or ever would be. I cried until my eyes were dry.This was the first time.I hadn't cried at the funeral. I was too angry then.I came to the garden today with good intentions... to remove some of the flowers from the bed and transplant them in the cemetery. It needed to be done while the soil around the grave was still fresh. Instead I had attacked the flower bed with a vengeance, hacking and beating the lovely blossoms with the shovel until nothing remained except a pitiful mass of green and purple.Now I felt an even deeper sadness as I gazed around at the carnage brought about by my own hands. I had vented my rage on the helpless innocent flowers.But isn't that the way of life...isn't it always the innocent who pay for the sins of the guilty?I lifted my face skyward and the sun dried the mud and the tears upon my cheeks.'It isn't fair, God! It just isn't fair"Kyle was only forty-six years old. He survived Vietnam...and his homecoming...when he had been spit upon and called 'Baby Killer'.He survived Desert Storm. This time he came home surrounded by his comrades, laughing and cheering atop a charter bus. Driving through miles and miles of yellow ribbons, welcome-home signs, and red-white-and blue flags, waving in the hands of the proud and the joyous.He survived all that only to die a violent, senseless death six months later. To be gunned down by a psychopath whose only reason for killing was to watch his victims die.Kyle, with the laughing brown eyes, the eternal smile.Kyle, who would never be forty-seven, nor see his third-born child.Kyle, who loved purple Irises.I could empathize with the flowers. I knew what it was to be crushed and broken.Filled with remorse, I tried to straighten some of the broken stems, to somehow undo the damage that I had done, but it was hopeless. Only God and time and sunshine could do that. I rose to my feet and started to leave the garden.My gaze swept across the flower bed and I spotted one lonely Iris still standing upright. Not a very healthy plant, kind of puny and frail, but somehow it had survived my wrath. I picked up the shovel and pressed its point into the soft earth. The plant was small, but its roots were deep. I could still take this one flower to Kyle's grave. It wouldn't be much to start with, this one lonely Iris, but it would multiply and next year there would be more.I lifted the flower from its bed and felt the baby move.The sun broke free of the clouds. My anger was gone. I felt cleansed. I cradled the puny flower against my swollen belly and raised my face toward the sun.God...and time...and sunshine...Yes, life does go on.Leeuna Foster is a Marketing Strategist, Author and Poet. She has been writing for two decades and her short fiction and poetry have won several national and regional awards. Visit her website: http://www.southernfriedwriters.com
Keyword : Inspiration,Life goes on,strength from God,smile again,loss, grief,overcoming loss
สมัครสมาชิก:
ส่งความคิดเห็น (Atom)
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น