The Grand Gift of Life

Skyler might just find out more than she can handle in very strange ways. A ghost story through and through.

She stood over the grave, fresh tears making it down her face one by one to fall to the earth. Those tears are what called him, called him back to finish what was needed. He started as a shadow and slowly came into a hazy focus.   
    

"Your family needs you darling, and as my last act, I'm going to give you a second chance," she felt a tingle on her cheek where his hand had touched. He burst into stardust and drifted away in the light breeze that came with the colorful rustic display the trees showed off in the fall.
    

Skyler fell to the ground just missing her head on the marble headstone and found nothing but darkness. She woke up after what felt like a life time in a hospital bed with her husband sitting next to her, stroking her hand with his callused fingers. She was so glad to see him but it quickly evaporated into distress, she couldn't exactly wrap around her finger what had happened and what remembered.
    

"I was so worried you wouldn't wake up, it's been days," her husband kissed her cheek and left to find the nurse to announce the happy news. Skyler's husband, Bill, came back shortly with a young nurse in tow to check her vitals. Once the doctor made it by Skyler's room she was finally able to get some answers to the questions that she had prepared while waiting, since no one else would tell her anything.
    

"The tubular aneurysm was the main problem, it ruptured causing massive internal bleeding, it's a miracle you survived," the doctor smiled kindly to her, "We were able to stitch it and it doesn't look like we will have to do a hysterectomy but you won't be able to have any children either. We found cancerous cells in your uterus, we were able to scrape it out but you will have to be seen regularly to keep it in check."
    

Skyler laid there for the next couple of days until she could be discharged. Her mind kept wondering back to the events in the cemetery. She needed answers and she couldn't stand lying there any longer, it was driving her mad. She knew her husband wasn't going to want her anymore now that they couldn't have a child together.
    

A few months later things were much better than those nights Skyler lyied in the hospital bed. Bill and Skyler's relationship had flourished and she now knew how much her husband truly loved her, he had been there every step of the way. He had told her that everything would be fine that for them to have a child didn't require her to be pregnant and that adoption was not out of the question.
    

Today Skyler had planned to do some shopping and meet some friends for lunch. She was looking at a new purse she liked in a window when she noticed a little shop tucked back behind all the hustle and bustle. When she walked in her senses were assaulted by intoxicating incenses and oils, there was all sorts of herbs and strange things on the shelves too. A little old lady sat behind an old carved oak table, that was heavily warn, reading cards and little stones.
    

"You have been touched by death recently, haven't you child?" The lady said without introduction, "please come sit with me."
    

Skyler sat across from her and folded her hands in her lap, "what would you know about that?"
    

"Only that it was a great sacrifice dear, but it also gave new life," the lady stopped looking over her cards and stones and gazed into her eyes.
    

"You mean he saved my life with the sacrifice of his soul? But what happens to someone that does that?" Skyler started to fall to pieces she couldn't bare to think her best friend and lover no longer even had a soul because of her.
    

"They are granted reincarnation dear one, his soul is now growing in your womb. He not only saved you from death but new life was granted for this selfless act. It is a grand gift, life." After those last words the little old lady disappeared, as well as everything that had been in the shop, leaving Skyler in a deserted alleyway.

Reviews

[KeithKVH]

I think stardust is a word, I dunno "star dust" looks off to me.

It's interesting. It was kinda depressing with her having those illnesses and not being able to have kids, then thinking her husband would leave her, and then it turned around and showed the love of her husband who stuck with her. Old lady is mysterious and the part about the gift of life is cool. I'm a little confused at the end though, is it that she can't get pregnant or can't bear the child? The end makes it sound like the reincarnation is going to result in her having a pregnancy, but I was thinking that from all that happened to her the reason she couldn't have kids was because it would be too dangerous to give birth. Maybe I don't understand the technicalities of the medical conditions she had.

[K.N. Thorn]

Thank you for the review, I also think you are right about 'star dust' being 'stardust'. All in all she was not capable of having children in the medical perspective but in the end she did conceive because of the spirits sacrifice to heal her. I hope that helps, sorry for the confusion.