Seasons - A Short Story

Spring

The diagnosis rang in her eardrums, everything else an echo to the violent cacophony of the doctor’s epic performance. Looking to the window, she marvelled at how everything continued, the miracle of nature’s exhalation of new life-sourced creation and rebirth. The unfairness of it all, the unjust imbalance as it sucked the mortality ravenously from her bones. A year he’d given her, 365 days, enough time to get her affairs in order, to organise, to plan, to say goodbye.

Summer

I’d been looking forward to the summer. Made plans with my friends. Arranged to go on holiday before our A Level results came out. Now, I don’t want to go. What pisses me off is that they waited to tell me until after my last exam. I could see she was ill, I could see she was struggling, but I was more concerned with getting the grades I needed to get into Durham. Fuck Durham. Fuck the summer. Fuck the holiday. This could be my last summer with Mum, and I refuse to leave her side. I’ll give her the best summer ever, trips to the beach like when I was little.

I can make a picnic; I can pack her sun hat and flip flops; I can give her a summer of memories - a collage of picture-perfect memories, everlasting between the covers of a photo album, timeless. This morning, we sat on the balcony, watched as a new dawn stretched her amber hues over the horizon, and gazed at the warmth of her caress as she cast her glow further across the enduring topography. I’ve never seen her look so beautiful, her tired eyes illuminated, radiating the breath of summer. Her smile hides the strain; she still laughs like she is healthy and has something to look forward to. When I turn and look closely, I am reminded of the carefully styled hair to hide the patches, the darkened shadows beneath her green eyes, and the contours of her cheeks seeping deeper into her face. Fading like the summer sun.

Fall

Nothing ever prepares you for the loss of a spouse. Not a year, not a decade, not a chance. Watching the woman I fell in love with deteriorate before my eyes has been traumatic for me and the girls.

When you fall in love, get married, start a family, you think that’s it - set for life. Get a job. Create a home. Idyllic. Seed planted, watered and exposed to sunlight. Watch it bloom. No one expects it to wither and die. For it to be stripped of its beauty and vitality, sickness coursing through its roots. My Amelia. My heart. My rock. I watch her fade as the nights draw long, no Amber or burgundy, but the shades of sickness, the greys, the off-whites, the bleaching of perfection, Destiny diluted until it’s so weak that it cracks, fragments and can no longer be recognised as anything more than tragedy.

Winter

She felt a strange calmness as the snow settled and stilled—a magnificent canopy of pearlescent white, untouched and glittering under the fairy lights of the naked oak. Perfection stretched afore her; it called to her into the night - a festive chime of arrival, beckoning her into a sanctuary of solitude, life’s reprieve. Eyes closed, she stepped barefoot from the heat of the hearth and placed her toasty toes into the crisp comfort of her final act. She danced into the garden, her weightless feet leaving whispers of a trail. Looking up, the flakes came fast and thick, balancing on the tip of her nose, melting at the touch. “I’m ready,” she called out to the heavens; her arms outstretched, she invited the silence, welcomed the calm. * I awoke this morning to find the bed cold beside me, her slippers still in situ beneath the old wardrobe. I searched the house to no avail but found her sleeping, covered in a blanket of fresh snow. She’s at peace now, bright amongst the stars, her beauty radiant, shining down upon us all.