Six Months --Challenge #107 (PG-13)

[librarian_7]

Usual disclaimers apply

This is a short piece written for the six month anniversary challenge.

Six Months

Six months today. Six months since she slipped away, without warning, stealing off forever into the night where she’d lived for so long. She always had a quiet way about her, but I never thought she’d go without somehow telling me goodbye. I always thought she stayed partly because she couldn’t bear to leave me. And in a way, I was okay with that. Better to have what I had of her, than lose her completely, you know?

And yet, standing here over her grave, I feel like in some odd sense, her death has set me free. It’s not that I don’t still love her, not that I ever—ever—resented caring for her all these years. But it’s as though her leaving gives me permission at last to move on. To maybe look at all the life around me, and take part. I mourn her death, now and always, but somehow she’s given me back the right to love again.

I think she’d like this place. She loved gardens, did I ever tell you that? Her touch could make anything grow, even an old, tired, vampire heart. And after my failure had limited her surroundings to cut flowers and potted plants, I think it’s good for her to be here, with grass and trees, and all the growing things she had to have been missing all this time. I even think that I might like to lie here beside her myself, if it ever becomes necessary.

What she was, where she was, these sixty years, was a lie against her nature. I should have been content to take the decades I could have had at her side. But we never know, do we? So now, she’s laid to rest, perhaps at the end of what her span was meant to be.

And I’ve told a lie on her tombstone, a lie because I wanted it to be true. And I wanted to see it the first time with the sod green over the grave, not raw the way I felt these past few months, knowing she was gone from the world.

So, my love, you rest beneath a stone that bears the name I wanted you to bear. Sarah Whitley Fitzgerald.

[fairytoes]

That was so sad! But beautiful writing! Thank you Lucky!

[cassysj]

You know I'm a sucker for Sarah. Lovely.

[francis]

This is sad, but also kind of liberating for Josef. So I will give him that.
At first I thought it was about Mick, but I should have known you would write something about Josef.
Love it.

[PNWgal]

Lucky, this is such a lovely bit of sadness.

I mourn her death, now and always, but somehow she’s given me back the right to love again.

Sometimes, death is the beginning. Sarah wasn't the only one that lived in limbo - Josef did as well.

I love the hints at Sarah's personality in this - her quiet way, her love of gardens.

Thanks for this.

[wpgrace]

Ah! Lucky! LOVED this! Lovely, and so Josef... sweet, but matter of fact. And LOVE the ending... love it!

[allegrita]

I was fine, just FINE, till that last line, and then I started bawling.

**sniffle**

That's really, really beautiful, Lucky.

[coco]

Beautifully handled Lucky.

[wollstonecraft61]

Very soft and touching, Lucky. The last line grabs one in the heart and squeezes.

[MoonShadow]

Lovely, just lovely. I knew in my heart that she passed. You put into words the honor and respect that she deserved.
Nicely done lady!

[bank1115]

I have tears in my eyes not really from this story but from my amazement that someone can convey so much in so little. You are truly, truly talented and I am envious. kays

[darkstarrising]

Lucky,

The love story of Charles and Sarah is so special. I literally got shivers when I got to the last line.....how poignant, yet sad, that the name he wanted to give her could only be borne in death.

[redwinter101]

I love this, Lucky - it's so incredibly subtle. The delicate mix of grief and relief, love and loss - it's beautiful and touching.

Red

[eris]

That's so sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[greenleaf9]

Aww, how heartbreakingly beautiful. You've got me all teared up.

I loved the little details about Sarah--how Josef thought she would be happy in a garden. So sweetly touching.