AMONGST THE WIND

The doctor had just told me the news, and it was that I was dying.
“Everyone is dying, just some faster than others,” I replied.
And oh, how much life I had lived, I thought.

I wasn’t some kid who had his whole life in front of him. No, that was the scrawny 15-year-old staring back at me. It was my grandson. My boy had brought him to see me. To say goodbye. Because that is what the human soul needs. They need goodbyes, as if it would make the loss somehow easier.

The doc had smiled, but I knew it was just for show. I had been on hospice for a while now and the smiles never reached their eyes. He whispered something to my son who was hunched by the window. My son nodded and then the doctor left.

“Well, boy, spit it out. I’m not getting any younger,” I said.

Three generations in one room. The youngest of us at fifteen, my son at forty-five, and I, seventy. All of us at different stages of life. My forty-five-year-old boy winced and looked to my grandson.

Why bring him if you couldn’t handle saying the hard truths?

“Dad, the doctor said you have less than an hour left to live…”

“An hour, huh?” I said and laughed. I knew my time was up. It was up when I longed to be like leaves amongst the wind.

“No, we need more time.” My grandson spoke in an almost demanding tone.

He didn’t cry but rather he was angry, angry with his father it seemed. Angry that this was all the time we were going to have. He didn’t grow up like his father and I. Where we spent countless hours in the fields and around the bonfires. Nope. Instead, he lived in the big city where the stars were covered by the streetlamps and large skyscrapers. Those city folk did not appreciate things like the stars or the trees when they wanted to build yet another office building.

“Have I told you about the story that I told your father?” I asked.

I was trying to catch the boy’s attention, because now was not the time for fights. Fights were a part of life that was worth having but not when someone was dying.

“Grandpa, there are a lot of those.”

This had me laughing, I would always tell my grandfather the same thing. I patted the stiff old hospital bed beside me, and he plopped down. This had my son wincing.

“What’s he going to do? Kill me?” I raised an eyebrow before turning my attention back to his boy. “The one about the trees, and how we are all leaves in the wind?”

The boy shook his head and as I began to tell our story. The beeping of the monitor brought me back to when there was a freak storm and the smoke alarm was going off, the same consistent beeping.

“Your dad was about your age when there was a freak storm. A flash of lightning crashed into a large tree my granddaddy and I planted. When we went out to check, your daddy cried as the large tree had broken and crushed the little tree he and his granddaddy planted. All that was left of his little tree was some leaves and ashes.”

My grandson gasped and I laughed even though at the time I was heartbroken as well, because all that was left of my grandfather was in that tree until I remembered a story. A story I told my son, and I told my grandson now.

“While your daddy was cryin’, I grabbed the bigger tree’s branches and pulled them away from the house, then I went to your daddy and picked up the leaves of his tree and I handed them to him. He asked me what he was supposed to do with the leaves, and I told him to let it go. Let the wind pick up the leaves and carry them away.”

“He looked to me and the leaves and asked what the point was. I told him it was because leaves are a part of the earth, and once you let them go that is where they will go back. The wind will carry those leaves and the ash to far off places beyond the mountains, and the rivers, through the valleys, and land. When they land, the earth will consume them. Everywhere they go the earth will remember, the wind will remember. And so, when the wind blows into you instead of putting on a coat, instead of cursing, just remember everything that the wind carries. The memories, the tears that fall down your face when you cry, the laughs. They will all be there if you stop to feel the wind.”

I looked down at my boy’s boy to find him asleep in my arms. I smiled and moved the hair out of his face.

“Even while you dream somewhere the wind is blowing, and the leaves move along the wind,” I whispered.

My focus turned from the sleeping child full of pain to look at the bigger one. Even though he had a boy of his own he was still mine, and I could see the tears he tried not to shed.

“When you’re young you don’t try not to cry. You cry for everything. You cry for love. You cry for sorrow, and you cry for the trees gone too soon. I could tell you not to cry for me, but I know you will. So, do me one favor.”

“What is it, Dad?”

“Let me go like the leaves. Let my ashes move along the wind so that I will aways be with you.”

“Alright, Dad.”

I smiled as my boy turned to the window and opened it. I felt the wind come through it and carry me away.

Audrianna Lynn Justnes is currently following her path on the way to becoming a proud owner of a Bachelor's of Science degree with a communication of Creative Writing. When she is not studying at Full Sail University, she is writing manuscripts of long and short stories. She also enjoys spending her time reading all genres of books.