A Passing Moment Before Death Comes

Her kind eyes met mine so lovingly, colored the same kind of blue I usually only saw in the mirror. For a moment, it was as though the clocks had stopped and we had all the time in the world. 

It’s like when I was little, and she’d let me win our board games by giving me tips on what to do. We’d laugh then, and I would beg her to play just one more round and she would indulge me, despite it being the fourth time that day and she really ought to have got started on dinner. I won again, and was promptly crowned champion supreme over a quick dinner of home made soup. 

The light of the lamps were cold and harsh, very unlike the way it had been when we’d drink hot chocolate by the open fireplace, the kind that you rarely see in modern houses; the kind that were all brick, done by hand long ago. The kind where nothing stood between you and the crackling fire, and it would mesmerize you in an almost primal way. We would spend ages in front of that fire, sometimes quietly talking, sometimes just silently enjoying the other’s company. 

No, the lights in here were far more similar to that sullen, gray day on the sea, when we had taken the ferry over to that little island just off the coast. The island itself was nothing much to remember in and of itself, but the walk along that rocky beach, my little hand in hers and the stories she told me of the trolls and fairy folk that had lived on the island when she was my age. That was far more interesting than what the tour guide had been prattling on about, if it hadn’t been the special kinds of rock on there or something like it. Of course, I’d since long come to realize that such things weren’t real, but the trinkets she had bought me at the tourist shop that day still sit at the top of my bookshelf. A little dusty, but loved and cared for nonetheless. We had spent the night at the hostel there, the one by the docks, and after the sun had set, we had gone stargazing. The sky truly came alive out there, free from the light of the city. I had told her about all the constellations I’d known, and we sat there until we had found nearly all of them. I can’t remember now which one we missed, but it was one of the big, complicated ones. Well, it was complicated to me back then. 

The light made all her features look so sharp, so unlike her. Her nose cast a sharp, crooked shadow down her cheek. She had broken it while sledding with me, how I don’t remember but I remember the panic I felt when I saw the blood pouring down her face. In a similar fashion, her wrinkles seemed far too deep for comfort. The ones near her mouth proudly proclaimed the past happy times, like when the entire family had visited for her birthday. She had laughed so loudly and heartily then, her unabashedness likely fueled a little by the wine, but her happiness was earnest and clear for all to see. She had tried so hard to tell a joke, but kept interrupting herself by giggling at a punchline she hadn’t even got halfway to. It was the infectious kind of laughter, so soon we were all doubling over anyway which only fueled her on. I never got to hear the end of that joke, because when I asked about it later she just started sniggering. She shook her head, and had promised to tell it to me some other time. 

The wrinkles between her eyebrows whispered of far more serious expressions, of which I had only seen directed at me once, when I had been helping her move. Well, helping was a strong word, if anything I think I might have made it more difficult. The third time she had found me with an open moving box with things strewn about on the floor, some even put back in their previous rightful places. She had lowered her eyebrows then, mad and frustrated, and I had cried, not knowing how to deal with her anger or her moving. I had just wanted things to stay the same as they had always been. I guess in that regard, I had not changed much. I remember her sighing as she bent down with her creaking knees. She wiped my cheeks gently. She had said that the things were getting a new home, same as her. I would not want to be left behind, would I? Of course I didn’t, so together we packed it all up again and carefully carried it to the moving truck. Helping her unpack it all was far more fun, and once we were done she even had a brand new drawing on the fridge, depicting us with all the muscles we were supposedly going to get from all the carrying we had been doing. Well, that she and the other adults had been doing, but I had counted myself in there anyway. We had celebrated Christmas there with the entire family just a few short weeks later, and I had glowed with pride as everyone praised my drawing skills.

Her hands, pale and frail were rough and full of callouses from years of hard work, which contrasted horribly against my own soft, relatively tan hands. Such strength had once possessed these hands, despite the hardest work I’d ever seen her do was cooking and knitting. She could do such wondrous things with her hands and suddenly, I fiercely regretted not having paid better attention when she tried to teach me and share her knowledge with me, in a way that she’ll never do now. 

All at once the moment passed, the clock struck twelve and those kind blue eyes turned cold and lifeless. The heart monitor blared, heralding her passing and welcoming Christmas Eve for all to hear.