Remnants

A Story by Clyde Grauke

A short story on the death of my mother.

As we were ending the last real visit with my mother, I turned on the porch to look back, and my mother gathered her strength, smiled and waved goodbye to me.

When I returned to see her, about a week later, everything looked pretty much the same except something vital was missing. There was just the house with her stamp on all its contents and lying in her bed was a hard to recognize body that was wearing mother's pajamas. It was like a spring thunderstorm had just passed by...evidence of the storm everywhere, the water glistening on every blade of grass, dripping from the leaves of trees, and running in rivulets into pools and streams. The atmosphere, charged with the aftermath of lightning, holding the silence of the rolling thunder, which had rolled away beyond all hearing. And all that was left were the remnants.

As time goes by, the rain will have soaked into the earth to return eventually as green plants and wildflowers... pushing up to bask in the sun. Especially the Bluebonnets. The Bluebonnets that she loved and that are perpetually reflected in her painting that hangs in a place of honor in my home.