The Tallest Tears

May 4, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Growth, Loss, Memoriam, Messenger, Micro-fiction, Rest, Things Kids Say, Visit 40 Comments

(photo: Na’ama Yehuda)

The tallest flowers caught her eye, but it was the withered daffodils that caught her breath and pressed a fist into her heart.

His favorites.

The stalwart sentinels of spring.

Outnumbered now. Outshone. Outdone.

As was he.

After utterly too short a time.

Her throat constricted. A reflex of holding what she’d learned would be a solitary cry.

“Look, Mama!” a child trilled. “The daffodils are tired!”

“Yes, darling,” a woman’s voice returned. “They did excellent work and are resting now, sleeping till next spring.”

Tears slid. It was something he’d say.

She should have known he’d send a messenger.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers.

Thank you, Rochelle, for using my photo for the prompt this week. And, for all who manage loss, especially of those taken too young in all manners of war – may you know that we remember, and we listen, and we will not forget.

Farewell

January 1, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Meditations, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Current events, cycle of life, Family, Farewell, Funeral, Grief, Memoriam, Poetry, saying goodbye, Weekend Writing Prompt 19 Comments

(Photo: Amitai Asif)

They said farewell.

They said goodnight.

They walked into dark

From light.

Their hearts were sad.

Their eyes were bright

With tears that grief will soon ignite.

Her passing’s new

Her suffering done.

They walked with her as

One cycle ended and a new began.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Goodnight in 45 words

Dedicated with love to my aunt, whose funeral is across an ocean and a sea tonight. May her memory be a blessing.

The Bet

September 29, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Family, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, grandparents, Loss, Memoriam, Micro-fiction, Spin, Surprise, Weather vane 72 Comments

“Stop the car!”

Milly hit the breaks and hid her smile. They’d wondered how long it would take Pappy to notice what they’d done.

Only two days … Which meant she won the bet and Ben will be raking leaves all autumn.

When Pappy climbed back into the vehicle, there was wetness on his cheeks.

“Your doing?” he whispered.

“And Ben’s.”

It had taken considerable begging and a promise to maintain the church’s lawn, for the pastor to agree to put Granny’s beloved weather vane atop the bell tower.

Pappy chuckled. “She always put on a good spin, didn’t she?”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo by: Dale Rogerson

Green Throne

February 25, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Artistry, CCC, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Gratitude, Memoriam, Micro-fiction, Overcoming, Photo prompt, Stonework 24 Comments

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Not many could make stone into illusion.

She could.

Her hands carved softness into unyielding rock. Made age appear into the moss as if the stone itself shed velvet, hewed damp to seep from underneath the surface as if through the core of sighing cushions, long forgotten, left to rot.

Only it was not.

Instead of a discarded chair, it was a throne. A headstone.

A memorial to the man who’d scooped her out of orphaned desperation, who brought her here, who led her to her heart’s forgotten home.

She held the memories of his calloused hands atop her shoulders. Steadying her mallet, guiding her chisel, letting her learn. Letting her fail. Letting her know she was worthy. As was he. Just because she was.

His masonry was practical. Fences. Houses. Walls.

Hers sang to the forest floor as she carved. His armchair, reincarnated.

For eternity. Her parent of soul.

For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

His Hummingbird

February 5, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: CCC, Family, Flash Fiction, grandparents, Grief, Hummingbird, Loss, Memoriam, Micro-fiction, Sign, Things Kids See, Visitor 14 Comments

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The day had been dreary so far. The cold. The damp. The boring wait for the car’s repair. The need to keep her body still and her mouth from chattering.

Gran did not let her wander. Or climb. Or touch things.

“You’ll get filthy.” Gran had stated. Like an ultimate sin.

At first Beth did try to argue. Daddy always said that filth is easy to wash off and that a bit of dirt was no excuse for sitting out good fun.

Gran did not think highly of Daddy.

“What judgment that man could have had in him,” Gran grumbled, “he’d given it up when he chose to leave my uterus early … and it only went downhill from there.”

Or up, Beth thought. He had promised to watch over her. Before the angels called.

“My Hummingbird,” he’d called her.

Her eyes rested on the sign. She smiled.

Hi Daddy.

For Crispina‘s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Not Forgotten

December 23, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Letting go, Loss, Memoriam, Mentor, Micro-fiction, Tribute 39 Comments

It was his favorite saying, so of course it was the one they chose. Never mind that no one else would understand the meaning. “Others,” he’d say, “have their own stories to hoard or trim or bloat or be rid of.”

They knew that no matter how far Heaven was, he’d see this and smile.

He’d taught them to let go of what held them down.

“Gone!” he would announce, tossing fistfuls of dirt to the wind to aid the transformation. “You’re free of this. You can move on!”

His motto gleamed above the desert sand.

Gone, but not forgotten.

Photo prompt © Trish Nankivell

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

A Visit From Paul

January 25, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Delaware, Flash Fiction, History, Memoriam, Micro-fiction, Navy, Revisiting, Shipyard, Veterans, War, What Pegman Saw, Writing prompt 16 Comments

Milford, Delaware (Photo: Ray Hennessy on Unsplash)

“He comes to visit,” a man’s voice jarred her out of her reverie.

She’s been watching a waterfowl in the sparkling water. It’s been staring back, she felt.

“The bird?” she turned. The speaker was a frail-looking man who still managed a bearing that stated “military.”

“If it is that.”

She glanced at the crane. The oldster sounded neither confused nor joking.

“Tell me,” she rose to make room on the bench.

The man extended a hand to shake. “Smith. US Navy.”

“Marcia,” she returned.

They used to build ships in Milford, he told her. Built the four-masted Albert F. Paul, too. Launched it from the Abbot shipyard in 1917.

“174 footer, she was,” Smith sighed. “I would’ve been onboard, you see, if I hadn’t been injured. Would’ve gone down with my mates when the Germans torpedoed her in 1942.”

“The fallen seamen,” he lifted his chin toward the bird, “they visit me.”

For What Pegman Saw: Delaware

The Great Loss

December 25, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Holidays, humanity, Loss, Memoriam, Micro-fiction, No More War, Tradition, Universality 35 Comments

“Did Great-Grandpa really fight in the Great War?”

“He did.”

“What made it great, Mama?”

She sighed. This place’s heaviness only settled thicker during the holidays. She’d come every year on Christmas as a child. Too infrequently since. The ocean’s breeze whipped hair into the boy’s eyes and she tucked a lock behind his ear. He so reminded her of herself.

“Grandma Rose said it was because the Heavens everywhere lit with the great number of souls and broken hearts. The Great Loss, she called it.”

“A lot of Christmas angels, Mama?”

“Perhaps so.”

“I think Great-Grandpa is one, though.”

Note: Dedicated to all who are missing loved ones during the holidays, to all who are no longer with us for they’d given their lives (or parts of their souls) for others, in search of peace, in hope of no more war or hate or greed. May we do better, as a species. Let there be true peace on Earth.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

(Thank you Sandra Cook for the evocative photo prompt!)

Gone Today

November 11, 2019November 11, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Flash Fiction, Grief, Kreative Kue, Loss, Memoriam, Micro-fiction, No More War, Photo prompt, Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, War 14 Comments

Photo: Keith Channing

They came for the car today.

It’s just a car, she tried to tell herself. It would not make sense to keep it. Not with the fees and with the debt on it only increasing. Oh, she tried, but there was no way around the loss of it.

No way around loss. In general.

She couldn’t bear to go outside to see it off. She stayed indoors, her nose glued to the window, her sweaty palms pressing life-lines into the glass, her heart in shreds.

It’s been his car.

And he would not be coming home to drive it.

Note: Dedicated on this Veterans Day (US) and Remembrance Day (The Commonwealth), to all who fought and won and lost and left and returned, or left and did not return, or not in the same way they’d left. And to the many who still are away in uniform. You are seen. You are known. May all come home whole. And may humanity one day learn peace and no more war.

For Keith’s Kreative Kue #237