Friday, March 15, 2013

Rest, Where Have You Been All My Life?

I am participating today in Five Minute Friday. FMF is a weekly writing prompt in which the host gives one word which nudges us wanna-be writers into a five minute, free flowing, creative word dump. The rules are: read the prompt, write whatever pops into your mind and out through your fingertips for five minutes, no edits and then link up at the host blog.

Just so you know, this, exposing my creative underbelly, is about as easy as walking into church, or school or just about anywhere else, naked.

I am going fiction on you today. And I am naked, walking to you offering up this lady's story:

It would finally come. After 93 years, one short marriage, one long one, 9 children, 33 grandchildren and too many grandchildren to count, she knows it is coming soon. She had no expectation of its arrival for the first 87 years. No one can really give it that much thought during all those busy years. There was too much to do to think about it arriving, too many people soaking your attention to think about what it would be like.
It's quieter now. He died five years ago and ever since she's been watching for the door to open and for it to glide in. A few times, she thought she heard the knob jiggle but it must have been the wind.
While she waits, she thinks about them, all of them. Some of their names she can't recall but the faces are clear, even the recent, little ones that she has only seen in pictures. She was always good with faces. 
She thinks about what she did and at once it feels like a dream. At the same time, it is so real. They are the proof, the faces. 
Playing it all back through her mind is as tiring as it was actually living it. She was, is always so tired. 
All she did was ordinary and the best she could. There is comfort in that but still she is ready for the door to swing wide and for the long awaited to arrive. Or maybe it will only open a crack and she'll slip through, silently, and finally get some rest.

By the way, today's prompt was "Rest." Now I need to get some clothes on.


Five Minute Friday

6 comments:

  1. It might be fiction but very sobering thoughts. I am grateful that our best is good enough for Him. And that He takes our ordinary & somehow makes something extraordinary out of it. Thank you for sharing.
    I visited from Five Minute Friday.
    Blessings,
    Joanne
    daysnthoughts.wordpress.com

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  2. fiction on Five Minute Friday's a new one for me! loved your creativity ...

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  3. I love this. You are so brave. Such beauty in the truth of a 93-year-old. Thanks for baring yourself. I totally feel the same way every time I hit pucblish on these five-minute-Fridays. :)

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  4. It is brave to be naked : ) I loved it!

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  5. wow, really liked that A LOT.

    Reminds me of my grief support writing group called "Mourning Reflections" where we always started with a prompt and let it flow. Some great stuff comes out when we write like this.

    Keep it up. I see a book in your future :-)

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