CHAPTER 5: A MOMENT OF SILENCE

My happiness and joy were all affected by my mood swings as everything had suddenly became paranormal. After the burial ceremony and everything that had happened that day, I couldn't have the memories of my grandmom dash out from my head and indeed I became solitary, lonely and felt like I was in exile. Tears broke a thousand-times down my cheeks which had become a waterfall of broken tear droplets. With a broken heart and a contrite spirit, it felt so alright to let tear drops fall from my eyes. But Trace and Steve were there just that I didn't look into their countless consolations. I was just quiet and mute like a shadow, so much going through my mind about gran Kate, that casket went down a cold six feet grave that in my view looked so deep. The burial ceremony had ended but her lying in state, the red clay tons of soil to the black loam and the white sand that leveled the grave, a cement block on it that read her name and the years that she had lived for, I only remembered that I loved her more when I let her go, stirring at the ceiling in the dark, I felt guilt and torture. Lonely, but this was my moment of silence. I was also learning that it is better to spend time with the ones you love than to avoid pain of the ones you've lost. I started realizing that this sang the soul of a thousand-year-old man which meant more that she passed on and faded away. I was looking for an open door, a little sympathy but only that I could only meet her in eternity.

Can you find a way to let me down slowly? The road was cold, alone and empty. I don't know why, but my head was always busy thinking a lot. I just pray that you rest in a perfect bosom, tell me that you hear me or am I just a little too late. My eyes were boiling red, my temper raging and the tablets of my heart writing a thousand tributes that my mouth could not mutter, I had a lot to do in this one day that I chose to mourn my grandmother. But still I felt it was not enough, I felt there was more to do. I went out to an agriculturist that day, but someone may ask where was Trace and Steve. Just that on that day, they just gave me space in respect to my loss and grief. I went hard and wild on myself, picked some lilies from the agriculturist for a cheap price, I first of all went to my old family house, I walked around slowly and the memories came back around me, my hands started sweating and I began hearing a church bell. It rang for two times and the third time. It seemed like I walked into a metaverse and I saw my parents. They were talking to me but I couldn't hear them, they looked so rich and settled, I waved to them and they waved back but I could see in their faces the long for a lasting connection. I tried to come closer but I couldn't, tried doing something as fast as possible. I stretched my hands as far as I could to reach for theirs but I could not still reach them that they began to slowly fade away.

It came as a vision but it felt like I passed through something. Suddenly I realized myself. I broke down to the ground again, but something seemed weird. I came there to bond with feelings that I shared with grand Kate in the past and it just seemed as I had an unclear vision of myself and my parents. How come is this? I pressed my knuckles to the ground and pushed myself up. I took a walk around the house and when I got to our room where we slept, I and grandma. I saw our picture on the wooden locker in our room, it was a photo where we sat together under a tree at an adventure park. As at that time she was strong and healthy and she shun her full thirty-two sets like a new pack set of pecks, in a white collage cased in a glass picture album. I gazed at the picture as it was the most reckonable and priceless treasure that could make me to always remember what her face looked like. Of course, she could see very well and as at that time she was just in her late 50's. Everything in me was just on a standstill, my ears, eyes and even all my sense organs stirring at the picture lost fully., and eventually I could not even recall how old I was at the time. My facetime was in a mix of surprise, joy, trepidation and grief. I was in mixed feelings. I just stood there with a shut jaw, no backwards or forward for more than ten minutes and after taking a very deep breath. Hmmm! I carefully wrapped it in a blue clothe and searched the house for a bag. I got it, put the picture collage in it and went out and this time I locked the doors and windows. Of course, it was a family heirloom though it was small and old fashioned, who knows? It could save my ass in the future just that I did not want to stay in it any longer, due to the fact that I had new friends. I picked my lilies and headed to the cemetery to plant the flowers next to her tombstone. It was getting dark but I struggled with time because I felt it a duty to pledge this love to her. I felt gran Kate even deserved more.

I boarded a taxi and got in and when I got to the cemetery, I was guided to her tombstone. It was very cold and I felt breeze pushing me left and right. I knelt before there and I began singing her most favorite hymn, two to three times. I felt the force of other spirits trying to frighten me but I was so optimist and unafraid, and there the silent voice that has been bussing around me with signs I had tried to overlook since I came in, the voice could now speak. In a verbally loud manner, it said I am with you, Child. It sounded like her, sure it was her. I felt so embraced and with the guts craving in me I meditated and prayed for a bit a long time while I plucked a few flowers on her grave, I planted the lilies on her graveside. They stood to me that she still represented something deep in my heart and I was never willing to let go, it was a strong driving instinct in me. I was on my knees so I got up, kissed the tombstone, and I muttered, 'May your soul grandma rest in peace'. I walked out of the cemetery and to me this had made the most perfect Halloween history can ever write, a girl cutting the flowers of a lily on the tombstone of her grandmother and blowing a kiss to the same tombstone. What a superficial moment of silence for me that many cannot do, let alone think of for their loved ones who had left the earth, it was great. I stood there arguing with myself and when I checked my time, it was 9:45pm.

This was terribly late for me. I had never stayed this long outside in my whole life, but so far as this one is worthwhile and for sure I was doing it for grand mum, there was no reason to hesitate. Even if I was going to sleep outside it was worth it, a very memorable moment that I could not forget, of course the whole moment of silence thing was like a pray and fast and it is now that I could take my rest. The moment was over and I was ready to move on with my life but not for good, I would still be making out time to come pay my loving memories to my grandmother. For now, it's a rap we move! While walking, I stopped by a call center, I dialed the home line that I was familiar with and Steve picked up the call, I told him to come up from the cemetery and in shock Steve replied, come again, you said the what?

I hung up on him, and he rushed come get me in his old ford truck. We exchanged pleasantries and quite apparently, he metaphorically was inquisitive, as damn hell I though he would. But for this girl, Tess baby! I was sure in the mood but all those questions fell on deaf ears, I sure knew that it will give him some panic attack or something if he thinks too much, but I didn't give a fuck. I played numb the whole lane.