Tear Stained Memories

• Laura Usher, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2015

Memories are the priceless treasures that are the very essence of who we are. It breaks your heart when our loved one grows forever more different from what you past recall. Particularly, when you remember them alive and well and the next thing is that they are lying in a coffin, dead. I know this pain, as my amnesia-stricken grandmother was crippled from the inside out. The entire event was filled with foolish hope and the sudden realisation of death. What I can remember of this grief-washed day was my tear stained memories…
***
Everything was white, the walls, the floors, the light that filtered from the windows, all white. It was the smell of hand sanitiser and clean bed linen that made me cringe; it was the smell of sickness and death; and the pungent smell of the hospital. Silence haunted the corridors only to be interrupted by a cough from a patient or the hurried footsteps of a nurse. All of it screamed death, regret and the faint hope of recovery only a few ever reached.
Trying to match Dad’s long strides, I turned left, right, left, and left again. A small group of doctors and nurses had gathered around the entrance of my grandmother’s room, all wearing grim expressions. My stomach somersaulted and a million questions flooded my mind: “Don’t they always look like that with their faces permanently creased with a frown?” and “What are they discussing?” My façade was disturbed, as dread contorted my face into a frown.
Mum and Dad were worried and I knew it. Despite their denial earlier when I had asked them, the tell-tale symptoms of nervousness were present: Mum reapplies her lipstick, and Dad’s left eye twitches. Soft murmurs were audible from my parents and the employees of the hospital. A pause and a sincere sorry was what followed the conversation. Mum gave a small gasp, her hands over her mouth, before running to the comfort of her car. Dad followed her clearly distressed as well.
I was alone and walked into the room. Neither the doctors nor the nurses noticed me slip through the small opening of the slightly ajar door. I opened my mouth to say hello to my beloved grandmother, but only to shut it again seconds later, as realisation slapped me in the face. The flowers I held were wilting as a result of my iron-grip. Perhaps the flowers represented my hope, but I it was my grandmother’s death making the flowers wilt. We all knew that her death was inevitable, though the thought was unbearable. Despite the limp and lifeless state of my much loved grandmother, she looked like an angel. Her wispy grey hair was a glowing halo around her head, her sheet-covered arms her wings and her personality her beauty. A single tear rolled down my cheek, as I whispered goodbye…