The woman shifted in her chair. The black lace around her throat itched, but she could not move it. The people who came passed by in blurs. The day started to spin around her to the same, monotonous tune. “…so sad…he will be missed…poor thing…he’s in a better place now…is there anything we can help with?…”
It rang in her ears. Over and over and over…
Until it slowly started to transform into a different song.
“Dahm dahm, dahm ooh dahm
Mm dooby do
I want, want you to know
I love, I love you so
Please hold, hold me so tight
All through, all through the night…”
She was spun around the dance floor, her milkshake long left to melt. The young man holding her was smiling and lip-singing along to the song coming from the jukebox.
It was like a fairytale
And yet the song started to change into another…
“I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day
When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of May
Well I guess you’d say
What can make me feel this way?
My girl (my girl, my girl)
Talkin’ ’bout my girl (my girl)…”
…and she was spinning again. Only this time her skirts were white, and the man in front of her had tears in his eyes. She felt her own tears start to slide down her cheeks as she recognized her father. She opened her mouth to speak, yet her father stopped moving and looked toward another man that had walked up to them. He passed her hand to his, and before she could get out a single word she was being swept across the dance floor. The man was the same as the one from the song before, except a little older. She looked to where their hands were clasped and gasped when she saw matching bands around their fingers.
But the music changed again…
“Oh, oh, oh
Sweet child o’ mine
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Sweet love of mine
She’s got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain…”
She was holding a baby in her arms; it couldn’t be more than 2 weeks old. The man from the last two songs, again a little bit older, came into view. He was singing along to the song coming from the radio, and had a young boy riding his shoulders. They danced around the living room, singing along to the song. She swung her hips and shuffled along with them, laughing as the man sang off-key.
Yet the radio started going to static, again and again, each for longer amounts of time, until it stayed there.
And then the static twisted and turned into a different buzz.
She would recognize that buzz anywhere.
It was the buzz of hospital lights and air conditioning. That unearthly duet that gave off an eerie feeling whenever it stopped.
She was standing outside the door to a room. Its old sliding door creaked as she opened it.
The old, wrinkled face that peered out from behind the blankets smiled as she walked in. Eyes that had looked at her for as long as she could have remembered followed her as she took cautious steps toward the bed. An arm with dozens of dark and light spots shifted and fell out of the sheets when she neared. It reached toward her, and for a reason that would take too long to explain, she took it.
* * * * * * * *
The world exploded in bright light, filling the room until all there was was her and the man in the bed. The world moved, spinning them around and around. A dancing couple passed them, and she could have sworn it was her face. There were people all around them in various stages of life. Kids, teenagers, young adults, the old…
But they all had one thing in common.
It was them.
The old couple watched as their life played out in front of them. They watched their happiest moments, their saddest moments, their proudest moments, their most ashamed moments…
All of them were there.
As the woman looked back at the man who she had shared her life with, she saw that the hospital bed was gone. He was standing up beside her, that ever-present smile on his face beaming down at her. The tears that had clustered in her eyes fell down, but he brushed them away.
“Do not be sad, Janice. This is not a time to cry,”.
“Why did you have to leave, Grant?” she choked out in between sobs.
He smiled and looked out at their memories.
“Look at everything around us,”.
She looked out and watched as their memories danced by. There were so many that it took awhile before the cycle restarted. She felt a warm hand touch her chin, and he slowly guided her head back to look at him.
“I will always be with you, Jannie. Until the end of forever,”.
Around them, their memories stopped, and his words echoed through his other selves.
“Until the end of forever”
“Until the end of forever”
“UNTIL THE END OF FOREVER”
…
…
The woman opened her eyes to one of her sons shaking her. She was sitting on a bench outside the reception hall.
“Mom? Are you okay? You passed out for a second there…”
Her son’s worried face blurred from the tears that collected in her eyes.
“Yes…” her eyes wandered, looking around the reception hall. Her eyes stopped in the middle, focusing on the picture of her late husband, “…I do believe I am okay…at least…”
“At least…? At least what, Mom?”
at least until the end of forever
* * * * * * * * * *
This was based off of the obituary of Grant Carruth.