It had been a fairly mild December, particularly for the small town of Johanna; where the temperature usually drops below forty degrees in the middle of September. But during the weekend of the 18th winter didn’t just come knocking, it kicked open the door, and stomped on in. It was as cold as a body buried in the basement on an old home. The wind whirled. The rainy December air smelled of freshly fallen rain, and leaves that took longer to fall due to the unusual temperatures, leaves that now lay, in glossy brown clumps, on top of wet grass and mud. Heavy rain-clouds turned the look of mid-afternoon in the suburbs to a late evening look. Cars, lined up against the curb, were pelted with drizzle.
The storm was moving on – out towards the Atlantic Ocean – and behind this storm, a few days away – even colder temperatures, and more precipitation waited to roll in (it looked like it was going to be a white Christmas after all). Weather forecasters were advising people to stay home. One warned, “These roads are going to be slipperier then a crook with a law degree.” It was the most dangerous type of storm, for the simple fact that it didn’t look that bad; it just seemed like a rainy day to most.
Heather was asleep in bed, not aware of the weather reports or the falling temperature (or anything else for that matter). Lying on top of her made bed, she wore the clothes she had worn all day. Her hands were curled up under her chin, gripping the pillow she was resting on. It may not have been the right weather for an afternoon drive (according to weather forecasters), but it was perfect weather for an afternoon nap. She was an attractive girl, with long brown hair, and small features.
In steady, soothing taps, rain beat against her bedroom window. A tiny amount of twilight, that had fought its way through the thick rain clouds, found its way through a small opening in her bedroom curtains. The song “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” by Judy Garland filled the room, at a low volume, from her stereo in the corner of her room.
A small flicker of fire danced on the wick of a drip candle, which was placed in the mouth hole of an old wine bottle, that sat on the nightstand next to Heather’s bed. Many layers of different colored wax clung to the side of the old bottle, from candles long forgotten. A beautiful Tiffany Lamp was sitting off to the side of the wine bottle, next to an alarm clock/stereo, which read on its face, in deep red numerals against black, 3:20.
A chair sat next to her nightstand. It was the same chair that had sat in Heather’s grandmother’s living room for fifty years – until she past in her sleep one cold November night two years earlier. It was the most uncomfortable chair Heather had ever sat in, and, when in her grandmother’s house, was always empty of a person. Even in grandma Edith’s opinion it was horribly uncomfortable, but it always had its place in her living room. And Heather would always have a place for it as well.
In Heather’s bedroom, unlike in grandma Edith’s living room, the chair was never empty; it always held a pillow. A very special embroidered pillow Heather had made from scratch with grandma Edith years earlier, when she was ten.
So much love and heart went into making that pillow. Heather spent many Saturday, and Sunday afternoon’s, during the summer, making crafts with her grandma in her kitchen – which always smelled of freshly baked bread, fudge, or apple pie (not that Heather was fond of apple pie, but she did enjoy the smell). But, without a doubt, the pillow was the most laboring of all the crafts she ever worked on.
The picture Heather embroidered on the pillow was an actual picture that hung on grandma Edith’s kitchen wall (in 52 years the inside of grandma Edith’s house never seemed to change; when the house was being cleared out after her death, the paint behind the pictures was vibrant, and the carpeting under the furniture looked new). The picture was of a church on top of a hill looking over a small, snow covered town; the moon hung big and bright in the sky. Grandma Edith had taken Heather to the place in the picture many times – just like she took Heather’s father there many times when he was a boy. In fact, the last time she took Heather was two weeks before her death. And two weeks after that, Heather’s father would join his mother, compliments of a car crash as he was coming back from visiting Edith’s grave.
The church on the hill was Heather’s favorite place in the world, full of wonderful memories. She embroidered the picture all by herself, and it was perfect; not a stitch out of place. It took over a year’s worth of Saturday and Sunday’s, but in the end it was perfect, and made Heather proud.
Hours were spent, during her childhood, not only in the sunlit nook of that kitchen, but all throughout her grandma’s house. In a time when our heroes are destroyed by headlines in the newspaper, Heather was lucky to have grandma Edith – a hero in her own family.
Next to Heather, in bed, laid her poem book. It sat open, and scribbled on the open page was some of her thoughts. They read:
When your seventeen you have forever to live your life; there’s always tomorrow. DARN IT!!! I wish I could get that thought out of my head. It’s not when your seventeen, it’s just me. Why o why am I so scared of life? I wish I knew the answer. I can make plans every day that I live, that’s the easiest thing to do. It will never make any difference because I’m so scared. DARNITDARNIT!!! I want to make the world a better place. I want to make a difference. Star light, Star bright, First star I see tonight, Wish I may, Wish I might, Have this wish I wish tonight: STOP BEING SO DARN SCARED!!! That’s my wish. I hope someday it will come true.
To Be Continued...
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