ELEXIS (Lex) NATHAN

Bittersweet Memories


Gazing through the window, she observed the meticulously manicured yard full of beautiful spring flowers. The bright yellow daffodils nodded their heads in the late afternoon sunshine, and although her eyes rested upon them, the vision was but a golden blur. She sniffed softly as her hand, holding the tissue, rose to catch the small tear falling from her eye. Today was another one of those firsts. The first Halloween without him. The first Thanksgiving without him. The first Christmas without him. And now this, the first springtime without him.

Crossing the living room, she sat back down at the dining room table and started to close the picture album, but she hesitated, caught up once more in the images of the faces from the past. One image, more vivid than the others, starred back at her from the page. This little boy had innocent, deep blue eyes, just like hers. He had a cleft in his chin, just like hers. His hair was blonde, which was a little lighter than hers. His complexion was fair and he had a sweet round face, much like hers. He was hers. He was her son. He is gone.....killed in a motorcycle accident July 30th., just three weeks and four days past his twenty-first birthday.

Awh...there he is, just two weeks old in this picture, with his two brothers sitting on each side. Oh, and look at that one in the bathtub with a soap mustache.
And there he is on his old gelding horse, Pokey !

She flipped rapidly through to the back of the album and stopped at the picture of him at the beach attired in black wet suit, surf board standing upright beside him, ocean breakers crashing in the back ground. A native born, California Surfer! Oh, how he loved the thrill of catching a wave and riding it in. He loved people.
He loved his girlfriend. He loved life. He loved his mother.

"I miss him so much, but he is okay on that other side, safe and without pain," she murmured as she closed the album. Her eyes were drawn back to the daffodils out side the window, daffodils he had helped her plant. A vague picture of his head stone at the cemetery began to materialize like vapor behind her eyes, but the engraving in the stone stood out vividly. It said:

"WHEN THE EARTH SHALL CLAIM YOUR LIMBS...
THEN SHALL YOU TRULY SURF."


Her son is "okay" .......

                                      she will be okay...someday.




Written by Lindy in memory of her son.
©  March 1997

   
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                                                                      Page created 1998
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