I Remember

I remember turning onto Elliott Avenue

and Grandpa's car pulling up beside me.

"Get in," he said, and I got in,

beside my mother and little sister.

From the front seat, my Grandma

turned and told me

"Your father has died."

"Dad's dead?" I asked, my voice rising.

"Think of your mother! Think of your mother!"

she admonished, and I fell silent.

Just that quickly

had life 

completely 

changed.

I remember Grandma 

having a dizzy spell

that afternoon, from stress,

and my mom worrying
she was going to lose

her mother, too.

I remember that night,

at the supper table,

my mom looking at 

her two young daughters,

beginning, helplessly, to cry,

and having to leave the table.

She went back home, alone,

that night. Later, she told me,

she felt Dad's presence there,

took his old, battered hat,

held it to her chest,

and walked up and 

down the creek, crying,

all the evening.

He had been her love

since she was just sixteen.

To the end of her life

she repeated, like a mantra,

"He was the only man I ever loved."

I remember, after the funeral,

standing beside her

in the church doorway,

at the top of the stairs,

looking out at a normal, sunny 

summer afternoon,

and her looking at me and saying,

"We have a long row to hoe, now."

And we did.

At Poets United's Verse First today, Kim set us the prompt: I Remember. We were to start writing and put down whatever came and then revise it. Mine came exactly as it happened, and I couldn't think of any way to revise it.........I love Kim's prompts.