Where Words Wander
Willow wistfully wondered whether words uttered by her late other half lived on after his passing.
Willow walked slowly. She could not, for the life of her, understand why people rushed. Enjoyment dissipates when people hustle through their lives. Her glazed blue eyes, ones which have lived to see many memories, landed on the park bench which held a special place in her frail heart.
Being an eighty-two-year-old grandmother with six grandchildren often took its toll on Willow, but as much as her bones whined, her muscles cried, and her heart tugged sadly against her chest — she still held the fiercest and most sincere smile. Leaning on her cane for support, she approached the bench resting against the large hedge concealing her from view.
Her fatigued eyes, worn with age and hugged with wrinkles of wisdom, glassed over with a sheer coat of tears, before her quivering voice sweetly said, “I’ve missed you, Wilson.”
The wind nipped at the exposed flesh of her face scattered with freckles and blemishes, and she sniffled achingly, before slowly reclining onto the wooden bench, which creaked with old age, mirroring her state and causing her to smile ruefully.
“We’ve spent so much time here on this bench, didn’t we?” She placed her hand gently onto the space next to her, and she gazed at it reminiscently.
She recalled the sweetest words uttered by her late husband. The kindest murmurs, and the loving gazes he’d given her for as long as he’d known her. When he parted from this life and left Willow behind, she felt a gaping hole of loneliness in her chest. She felt hollow without him, as though she’d never feel complete again. It was the way he loved her so deeply that caused the pain of his passing all the more heartbreaking for Willow.
But his words lived on. The memories she shared with him were told time and time again to her children, and her grandchildren. His sweetest gestures wandered from one generation to the next, his soul living through them all.
Yes, she missed him terribly, she admitted as she woefully wept on the park bench they’d spent their early and late years together on, sharing laughs and memories. But it brought her tremendous comfort knowing that he would never be forgotten.
His words would wander till the end of time, living through his grandchildren’s beating hearts, and passing on to their own children.
He was never really gone. And that lulled Willow into a peaceful trance as she sat among the chirping birds and the beautiful solitude the park granted her.
