The Boy and His Mother

My Grandmother's house was filled with nothing,

but a bed, an old mahogany grandfather clock,

and a newly placed vase in the closet which I sat

across from.

That was all about to change though, sense the boy

moved in with his little toy cars, and clothes thrown

about in her creaky aged rose colored house.

It all made sense I think, when the boy ran in for

the fifth time with out a shirt on. He was staring

at me again with his dark brown eyes and messy

brown hair. I think all six years do that though.

He was silent as he came over the slit cream

couch to grandmother's side. She smiled

bleakly at his youth, her smile was always

kind of sad when it came to him.

I stood next to the white closet door as she looked

up at me and smiled the same way she did to

the boy. When she looked back he asked

the question he always did around this time

"Where's my mom?"

My heart sank a little as Grandmother pointed

her aged hand towards the closet I leaned against.

I felt my muscles tense and my organs contort inside me.

It was a pain that always came to me when I saw his

naive eyes staring so blankly, so hopefully towards every

folly that she told him.

She answered back to the boy with her crinkled lips

caked with red lipstick and a bit of old coffee grains.

"Your mother's in the closet, dear."

I understood, but at the same time didn't. She always told

me he was just too young to understand his mother's passing.

Too young and too blissful, to no longer have a mother. It hurt to

see him do this every time, like he was a ghost stuck on repeat.

This time though, this time it was all a bit different. He demanded

that I open the closet door and I didn't have the heart too. I stood frozen

to the knob. How could I move? How could I be the one to tell him, when

I too could not understand the concept of this type of thing?

As if by its self the door cracked open and the urn fell to the ground

twirling over and over and spilling

like black tears over the boy and my feet.

He cried by my side and I could

not do anything for him. I had never lost someone so dear to

me, so instantly without warning. I did not know this pain he felt.

This foreign concept,

This concept of losing someone,

The concept of death.