There was nothing left to prove; eighty-four years had been a long time to figure out, and then to realize that every moment was not going to lead up to something spectacular.
The journey–it had certainly been interesting, briefly promising, stimulating, challenging, and even thoroughly enjoyable–but it had not been what she had expected, nor what she had wanted.
Her true love, a dashing Harry-Connick-like ladies’ man, had broken her heart over and over again and only when he lay dying, seven years after having left her, did he tell her: “I want to come home.”
Oh how many times she had replayed these words in her mind and fantasized about what it would have been like to have brought him home and to have loved him like she should have done had she not been so busy keeping the perfect house and raising their five children in keeping with the times; times when a woman had a defined role to play; times when you kept up appearances only to realize far too late that keeping something else up would have been better.
Nevertheless, she now lay dying, and having been given sufficient permission, she had decided that instead of trying to conquer the living, she would visit her beloved dead: “I want to come home too,” she whispered to him before taking her last breath.
Today’s post is “Five Sentence Fiction,” the birthchild of Lillie McFerrin. This week’s word: conquer. Visit this intriguing weekly challenge by clicking on the icon below:
This is so melancholy…a love that couldn’t be fulfilled.
This is a simple yet real take on this prompt. Well done.
Wow! You gave me a chill with this one. Very nicely done. 🙂
May we never live our lives in regret.
May we recognize life’s gifts when given
To us and dance in the wind with them…
May you find wonderment under every rock and giggle in its discovery….
The isolated old woman has left, it is time
To celebrate life and dance… For this is your time…let your mothers life and love for you always be the light in the dark.
Very beautiful, Britton. A lovely and loving tribute. “I want to come home.” So simple, yet powerful in its poignancy. Some of your best writing, my friend. You were so fortunate to have your mom for so long. My mother died at 54. She’d be 95 this week. Both our moms fell in love with dashing men who would leave them and when my father was dying, it was my mother he wanted to come back to, as well.
Tears of sorrow, tears wrought of the power in the writing, tears of all that’s unstated in what we share when we write about our mothers.
A lovely but somber piece. Beautifully expressed. thanks for sharing this!
Not sure a ladies man who broke her heart over and over is a true love. But that she had made a home worth coming home to, that would be a better thought for a last breath.
It would seem that way…but sometimes true loves are not ready for love in this lifetime.