Contentment

A Story by Zea

my grandmother passed away when i was very young, i have never seen someone so at peace... this is what i saw.

When i was younger my grandmother fell gravely ill. I had spent days avoiding her bedside, but one night i had mustered the courage to creep down the long hallway to her room. When i think of that night now i can almost smell the dusky scent of old books and expensive perfumes; collections she was proud of but they would mean nothing to her tonight...

when i peered into the room, what i saw would stay with me forever though i knew it not then. I saw my grandfather cradling my grandmother's fragile frame in his arms. their eyes were closed. I could see my grandfather's lips quiver as he muttered a prayer, a single tear drop ran down his cheek and for the first time i knew what it meant to love someone.

Just as i thought this, he opened his eyes and i could tell he didn't see her the way we saw her. He didn't see the spider web of wrinkles; the deep creases and her mouth due to years of smilling, nor the furrows between her brow due to years of worrying.No, what we saw he would never see. To him she would always be the beauty he had fallen inlove with.

I saw how tenderly his rough gnarled hands held her fine delicate ones. At his touch her eyes opened. In them i saw a contenment i cannot explain, except as ominous almost eerie. I didn't understand it, neither did my grandfather at first.His eyes searching her face for an explination. Her only response a faint smile, the faintest smile i had ever seen, but still a smile.

The single tear drop which journeyef down my grandfather's face was now followed by many. They streaked his weathered features with the silvery tracks they left behind, but something inside him had changed. As though that smile had been a shared secret. His eyes now also contained that same ominous contentment. I heard the call to prayer sound in the distance. My granfather laid my grandmother down and prepared for the morning prayer.

I'm not sure how long i watched them or when i had fallen asleep. When i woke up... i saw my grandfather kneeling at my grandmother's side and i heard him whisper to himself: "She is with god now."