"The Rose"

[Miss. Hellfire]

I'm going to apologize in advance for my improper capitalization:

"the rose"

She looked so sad in sleep. Tears still glistened on her wrinkled cheek, and her face appeared to be etched in grief. Her shoulders still shuddered uncontrollably; her breathing came in rasps. I knew instantly she had the dream again. I wondered, as I did a lot lately, just how much longer my grandmother could stand the torture.

~IF ANYONE WANTS TO CONTINUE READING THIS, PLEASE POST~

[Miss. Hellfire]

~ok, posting another paragraph:

My grandmother was a remarkable woman. Many evenings we would sit in our old porch swing, watching the seasons change. The passage of time never meant too much to my grandmother. After the deaths of her two children and the long illness and resulting death of her husband of sixty years, much of her had ceased to exist. She lived for those evenings with me, when she could relate details of her life to a willing listener. I found my grandmother's stories fascinating, and there were few things I could find more interesting than sitting in that creaky swing, listening to my grandmother's words.

She was christened Margaret Alicia Dorian Grimsley. As she would say, "My mother would tell me the reason she gave me so many names was because with so many chidren, she was apt to forget one of them." Later, she was simply known as Allie.

Through pictures, I knew Allie was a beautiful child. My great-grandfather referred to her as "the little rose". Her hair, now silver, was once a pale gold--a striking contrast to her lively, violet eyes. She was a mischievous child, always into things she shouldn't be. She was adventurous of spirit, and never was it said that any boy could best her in anything. She was strong-willed, stubborn, and usually at the center of every impish prank. She says these characteristics frequently led to her downfall. I tend to believe, however, they are what makes my grandmother special. My grandmother would say that all her life was geared toward one day--the day she met my grandfather.

[silverlily]

This is going to be a beautiful story, Hellfire!

[Miss. Hellfire]

thank you, silverlily! i'll continue:

When she was eighteen, Allie met Franklin Lee Wells, the son of a successful family in a neighboring county. They met at the Danville County Fair in the fall of 1928. According to much-repeated story, he "mistakenly" bumped into her, and caused her to spill her drink. He fervently apologized and offered to buy her another. Two hours later, they had ridden every ride, visited every booth, and won every stuffed animal available. "He was an impudent young man, and quite arrogant to think I would be besotten with such a clumsy fool. He was, after all, a complete stranger." She said this in the same breath as she said, "My, I would swear he was the handsomest man in ten counties. And, mind you, counties were mighty big those days."

After a year of loyal courtship, Franklin Lee Wells asked Margaret Alicia Dorian Grimsley to be his wife. She immediately consented. Their young life together was innocent, as only young love could be. He was devoted to her, as she was to him. My grandmother would laugh sweetly as she remembered those early days of their marriage. It quickly became his habit to bring home roses to her and present them to her every night before she went to sleep. Those roses were always placed there by her head, where she could see them when she awoke in the morning, alone in their big bed. They struggled, as America herself was struggling, but she couldn't recall a night when he would not lie by her side and thank her for being his wife.

After only the three short years, my uncle Alan was born. He was a precious child, and with his birth, my grandparents finally felt their love had been consummated with the arrival of this tiny person. Two years later, my mother was born. As the children grew older, my grandparents grew closer. Grandfather strived to provide for his wife and children, but they never really succeeded in crossing any financial barriers. My grandparents fought the great monster named poverty, my grandfather even begged his wife to take their children and go back home to her family. She would not leave him. They lost faith in their country and in their God, but they never lost faith in each other.

In the year of 1941, it happened. Frank was drafted. He was forced to leave his beloved Allie. If he could have run away from his duties to his country, he would have. That was the extent of the love he held for my grandmother. "When he left me, I didn't cry. I remember feeling as if I had the strength of ten men as I watched him board that bus. I didn't see my husband for four years. It was the darkest period of my life, yet I never doubted that he would return home again. If he were dead, my heart would have known it."

When the war was over, he came home. He was seriously ill; he had contacted a fever while in the swamps of France. Allie's tender ministrations nursed him back to health, but she knew he had seen to many horrors to ever be completely well again.

[Miss. Hellfire]

As the years crept by, Frank and Allie survived. They watched their children become adults, and have families of their own. A few years later, they watched as they outlived their children. There was an emptiness in Allie that quickly turned to coldness as the years passed by, years in which she lost her daughter to cancer and her only son to a stranger's gun. Frank swore he would never leave her, and he never did--until the day that he died.

In the spring of 1999, my grandfather passed away. The fever he had contacted during WWII never really went away, only lying dormant until complicated by ill health. There was no way he could have survived. By that time, he was too old and too frail to even bother to fight it. The last words he spoke were to my grandmother. She refuses to relate what they were. I do know that before he died, he commanded the nurses to find him a single rose. He gave it to her a few minutes before he passed away. The day they buried him, they buried the last of my grandmother. I moved in with her that summer, hoping she could find solace in her grandddaughter's life. She never did. It's not that she didn't love me, she was just too weary to care much about life at all. I could often find her alone, crying for some unknown release or freedom. She often spoke of the past, I believe it was her only salvation. Only when she was reliving her past did she show a bittersweet happiness. Such were the stories of my grandmother.

[Piper Halliwell]

So far so good

[Miss. Hellfire]

This is not the first time I've watched her sleep like this. Once, she woke me with her sobs, and I ran to her, fearing she was finally releasing her tenuous hold on life. That was the first time I remember hearing of the dream. She woke up, trembling as she told me. In it, My grandfather and her children were still alive. She walked among fields and fields of red roses, her husband by her side, her children running alongside her. They walked forever in that universe of flowers. She would reach down to pick up one of those beautiful roses, but she would always wake up before she could grasp one. She was again, alone. It was this sense of loss that always made her cry.

For the first time, I notice my grandmother is no longer trembling. Her cheek is still moist where the tears had left their wet trail. Her body is too still. I can't believe that after all those days and nights of internal torment that she has finally given in. Somehow, though, I'll never believe she simply "gave in". I prefer to believe that this time she won the war. I know this, the red rose still clenched in her withered fist is all the proof I need. I know instantly that my grandmother has finally found peace.....

~the end~

[silverlily]

I had to think about 'The Notebook'.
It's a beautiful story, hellfire.

[Miss. Hellfire]

thank you, silverlily! I'm glad someone was reading it!

[hollypop]

A tender and touching story, hellfire. You wrote it beautifully

[Miss. Hellfire]

:)thank you holly!