The golden flowers

A girl remebering losing her father at an early age.

She sat by the window in her room looking out into the front garden. It was early winter. The trees were bare and the leaves were still on the ground. It had been ten year now. It felt as though it had been forever but at the same time like it had happened yesterday. She was watching as the rain hit the window, gathered and trickled down the glass. She followed the drops with her eyes.

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That time, that year it had been colder. It was the first day with frost that year. It had been raining but the rain had turned into black ice on the roads. They had waited for him to come home. The food was already on the table. Her mother had called him at the office telling him to hurry home. They regret that now.

The food got cold and they ate, still worried. Then the phone rang. They had both sat frozen starring at it with surprise written all over their face. Her mother picked up the phone, both of them expecting it to be him, calling to tell her he was going to be a little late. The expression that came upon her mother’s face as she talked to the person on the other end, told her that this was not the case. She looked at her mother as all the light in her eyes disappeared. Her face went blank. She could not hear much of what her mother said, but she grasped the gravity of the situation. As the conversation seemed to have ended her mother slowly put down the receiver and broke down crying.

She was confused and hurried over to her crying mother to ask her what was wrong, but she could not answer. She just lifted her head a bit and looked out at the snow that had started to fall. She managed to mutter out a few words before bursting into tears again; “father… black ice”. At the time she did not know exactly what this meant, but something told her that something had happened to her father. She was right.    

She was standing behind her mother and put her arms around, who responded to the comfort her child was trying to give. She took her hand, took a deep breath and stood up. Together they went to the hospital. He had been put on life support. Brain dead, no hope the doctors said.

Later they had stood there again, in the same hospital room. Her mother had to give them the go ahead to turn off the life support. She sat by the window, not able to look while it happened. She looked out on the winter snow that on this day had almost turned into a snowstorm. A flood of emotions, her small heart could not contain, overwhelmed her as a single tears rolled down her cheek.

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The rain had stopped and the sun was cautiously peeking out from behind the clouds. She had left the house and was now walking over the damp green grass and over to the engraved headstone with her father’s name on it. She looked up at the sky. She smiled to herself as she saw a bird fly over her head and landing in a tree nearby. She kneeled down and laid her bouquet on the grave. Beautiful golden flowers.         

 

Reviews

[zainul]

Very emotional.
Eloquently expressed the details.
Love how the ending came with the words mentioned in the title of the story.
Great tribute to the death of the father of the girl.