IMPACT

Have you seen misery? Have you ever had a rendezvous with pain? If sorrow stood in front of you, would you recognise the deep dark hollow of its face? I have known grief, I can introduce you to her. She is the heavy redness on the face of a mother burying her child. She feels moist like tears falling on freshly dug ground. She speaks in wailing, a language in which I have become most fluent.

Another way to say you added weight is that you gained it; well, loss can be heavy too. The heart may be the size of a fist, but in times like this it weighs like a lifeless body. The lifeless body of my wife, Therese. 

I remember when I first met Therese, some 7 years ago. She was teaching at a summer lesson in her mother’s school which my sister’s children happened to attend. Never have I ever met a teacher so soft and yet so stern, kind yet so just. She regarded the kids with so much love and warmth that it enveloped even me everytime I stepped into her class. My sister began to suspect my frequent volunteering to help pick up her kids from school. One day, she finally followed me to see what it was about the school that she was missing. She saw how I was drawn to Therese, how my feet couldn’t stand to be five feet apart from her. It was obvious to her what I was too afraid to admit, the possibility of happiness.

And Happy, I was; while it lasted at least. It lasted as long as her walk down the aisle and it lasted as long as Abigail’s naming ceremony. It lasted till her fall from a motorcycle and it lasted till the impact of truck tyres grinding her bones. It lasted till the white casket was lowered beyond my reach.

To live is to love, to love is to lose. I have lived, I have loved and I have lost.

So let me grieve, let me wallow, let me wail.

Author’s note: Hello everyone! I know this has been a long time coming and I sincerely apologise that the next PETAL had to come 6 months after. What can I say? Life happened and it is still happening. However, I found the courage to keep on and I hope you all can find a place in your hearts to forgive me * sobs *. Just in case y’all forgot, let me re-introduce the PETAL series; since petals are little parts of the rose flower, this will be a collection of little stories written in FLASH FICTION! Flash fiction is a genre of prose where the writer has to tell a story using 500-1000 words. The PETAL series, however, will be written with 500 words or less. On that note, I give you IMPACT in 349 words – inspired by someone from my past who I recently lost (#RememberingEse). My writing may be a little rusty but I hope y’all felt the story as deeply as I felt writing it. Thank you and welcome back! Tienes mi corazon!

Love, Rosie (xoxo)