Peace

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Elsa wasn’t supposed to have survived the winter. She as old. She had congestive heart failure. Frail and fading, she had endured the long dark winter. Every morning, she was disappointed when she woke up alive.

Then spring came. The air softened. The days lengthened. She wanted to feel the sun on her old bones at least one more time before Death came to call.

Her son set up her favorite outdoor chair, setting it firmly in the late-snow-slushed ground.

They found her an hour later, upright, head resting on the back of her chair. At peace.

Her Happy Space

Vague

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt

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Mrs. Leigh had become somewhat vague in her words, and in her behaviors.  She tended to drift through her days without any particular plan or direction, yet her pets were always fed and groomed; her flowers always looked well-tended; and any visitor could enter her dainty parlor and find no dust.

Since her family and friends felt that she was becoming a bit–well, disconnected–everyone wondered how she managed it all.  They never noticed that she exerted herself.  Often, in good weather, she would sit in her porch rocker for hours at a time, sipping  tea or lemonade, staring vaguely into the distance.

How did she always manage to look so lovely?  Her snowy white hair was always neatly combed into its bun.  Her cheeks were always lightly dusted with a rosy blush, and she never forgot a light application of lipstick. Her clothes were clean, comfortable and ladylike at the same time.  She always had a plate of cookies to share when a friend stopped by to check on her.

Yet her responses could be so random, her comments not always consistent with the conversation.  How did she manage to keep up with her house and yard and her personal grooming when it seemed her mind was somewhere else?

Well, if they had been inside her head, they would have understood.

It was an orderly space, inside her head.  It just wasn’t  keeping up with everyone else’s.  She carried on long conversations with her beloved Andrew, who had been gone for several years.  She went about her chores just as she always had, without thinking about what she was doing.  She lived in yesterday, always polite, always a lady, always welcoming to those who stopped by.

But inside her head she was still living the life she’d had before Andrew died.  It was her happy space, and she retreated into it just a little bit more deeply every day.

Her children were concerned.  They needn’t have been.  She was completely happy, completely at peace.  THEY were the ones who worried.