Not exactly a romance: In Memory of those we've lost.

 
The Sweet Green
by WJC
 

Grandma used to always sit in that chair - the ricketty one on the front
porch. There was hardly an evening when I didn't come home and see her
there. She would just sit and close her eyes, with this little half-smile
on her face.. It was as if she knew a very special secret

One day as I walked up the dirt path that led to her house, I took the
time to just stop and look. Her house was old, some might say it was a
shack - but it was clean and happy. It sat down a long path, at the end
of a dirt road and was surrounded nearly all around by woods. She sat
there, as usual, in her old wooden rocking chair with her eyes closed and
her secret smile. The trees all around the house were waving and swaying
in the breeze, swishing softly as the winds rose and fell. I felt like I
was witnessing something sacred, something private and special that very
few saw. It was then that I realized that the trees here were always
green, and the leaves always full and rich.

Something in the winds must have given me courage, because I walked up on
the porch and asked her just what she was doing. She smiled gently, never
opening her eyes and said, "Listening, honey. I'm listening to the sweet
green." I frowned, and then sighed. Grandma was like that sometimes.
Things she said didn't always make sense.

Well, I grew up and moved away, as young people do, and got wrapped up in
my own life. I went off to college and moved to the city. I didn't see
Grandma as much as I should have. But when I did, she was always there,
always the same as I remembered. But one day everything changed.

Grandma doesn't sit in that chair anymore. You see, she took ill and then
she died. The house is empty, and there really is no need to hold on to
it. It doesn't look the same to my eyes. It's still as old as I remember,
and the chair as ricketty. But the winds don't blow gently and kick up
the leaves. And the trees aren't lush and full anymore. They're old and
dry and dying. The whole forest is still and quiet.

No one has sat in Grandma's chair in a long time. I think I will - just
for old times sake, just to remember her by.

Did you hear that? Was it perhaps the wind....