Memories

Memories

The pictures lay on the table in front of him, black and white snapshots of a life gone by. John sifted through them all; there were photographs of births, marriages, picnics, graduation, promotions at work, even photos of ordinary everyday events. Pictures, telling the story of a whole person’s life, a person who was now dead, and gone.
He spread the photos out, picking them up at random, examining them, then putting them back. There were so many of them that they covered the whole table in the form of a gigantic collage.
She had been beautiful, his grandmother. It was… odd, to say the least, trying to connect the beautiful young woman depicted in the pictures with the grey, wizened old lady who’d lain in bed all the time, sleeping, unaware of the world around her. He woman in the pictures seemed so lively, so happy, her smile seeming to light up each picture she was in. He could see traces of his own mother in her, shape of the eyes, the curve of the jaw, the soft, wavy hair, although hers was permed up in the fashion of the times, while his own mother wore hers long and loose.
There were pictures of his grandfather in there as well. John didn’t remember him very well, since he’d died when John had been very young. He remembered though, a smart, sprightly old man who’d always carried a cane and hadn’t any hair. The man in the pictures had a full head of hair; he was still smart though, standing tall and proud with his wife in their wedding picture. It made him smile.
John’s mother was there as well, a small bouncing baby at first, then a rotund child, then a gangly teenager. There weren’t too many pictures of her, though; his mother didn’t like having her pictures taken, claiming that she was too unphotogenic.
The photos grew fewer and fewer as they went forward in time, as people grew older and went on with their lives, not having time for pictures. The grandparents got older in each photograph, as if they were aging right in front of him, but the light in their eyes was still the same; the same spark and fire that had been there when they’d been younger.
Then his grandfather disappeared from the photos entirely. It was jarring, in a way; there he was, in one batch of photographs, old, but happy… and in the next, he was gone. That was it. There were no pictures of his funeral. Of course, John reasoned, people don’t take photographs of funerals.
His grandmother was still there, though.
She appeared now as he remembered her; an old woman, dressed in flower-print dresses and shawls. The photos were in color now, more detailed, as if trying to point out how his grandmother had changed. The lovely young lady was now an old woman, slowly growing smaller and weaker as her body broke down and the strength left her limbs.
Then came the last batch of photos, taken a few months before her death due to dementia. He remembered these, because he’d taken them himself.
They portrayed an old woman, sitting in bed, propped up by pillows. Her daughter sat next to her, and a small cake was placed on a tray in front of them. The old woman was smiling vaguely, seeming unaware of what was going on around her. Her daughter- his mother- had arm protectively around her frail shoulders, a hint of tightness in her eyes, the result of watching her mother slip away in front of her, and being unable to do anything about it.
He felt tears pricking his eyes, and blinked hard to keep them back. It didn’t work. The tears ran down his cheeks, hot and wet, and he bent his head, trying to choke the sob rising in his throat.
Then he heard footsteps come up behind him, and felt his mother’s arms slip around him. “John,” she said softly, hugging him. “Sweetheart, you’re crying, aren’t you?”
He shook his head, even as his shaking shoulders gave away his lie, and his mother hugged him harder. “She had a good life, you see,” she said. “Even though you didn’t see much of it,” she had a wonderful life. And she was happy.”
“But she’s dead,” he sobbed.
“Everyone dies eventually,” his mother said. “What matters is that we lived; we enjoyed ourselves, we were happy.” Breaking away, she collected the pictures and put them inside their box again.
“Don’t you miss her?” John asked.
His mother shrugged and smiled. “Of course I do,” she said. “I always will. But I can’t change that, so I have to move on. Memories… are a wonderful thing, but living in them all the time, that just won’t do. Besides, even if she is gone, I still have someone else to love and care for, someone else whose live is just beginning, and I have to be there every step of the way.” She smiled and ruffled his hair. “I still have you.”
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Word Count: 849 words including title.