The Unanswered Prayer

I was like a child, giggling and parading around with my beautiful flower in hand. Nothing could take away from my joy as I cherished the tuft of delicate, white pom-pom looking flower in my hand. Or so I had thought anyway. Just as a child is, I was ignorant. I wanted to believe that what I loved was safe from harm, that we’d continue together with no interference. Reality is much harsher than that, however, and it took the breath out of my lungs when my childlike wonder was kidnapped by fear. To any bystander it could have seemed beautiful, a cycle continuing, the wind capturing the last white fluff and detaching it from my dandelions flower head. The seed held no defiance as it openly awaited the journey of what’s to come, no fight nor desire to cling to its life. However I, attached to the frail thing, grew devastated as the white fiber pursued its new path. I grasped at the air, miserably trying to get hold of the white speck as it weaved through the air.

Dread invaded my head as I became dizzy and starstruck with fear. A sinkhole slowly budded in my stomach, growing steeper with every realization. The flower had become my friend, the very highlight of my day was caring for the fragile being, and something as minuscule as a gust of wind had abducted it from my life. Tears found themselves building in my eyes, I had met the flower when it was still yellow, full of life and expressing joy; kept with it even as it aged older, grayer, still every bit as beautiful despite its loss of color. And now? Now I had nothing left from it but its dingy, wrinkled stem. All essence of what once was withered away, still I kept hold of it just a little longer, desperate for some miracle to sprout into the hollow corpse.

Pathetic is what I looked like, crying over a flower I knew was running on limited time, becoming attached to what had shown me wouldn’t last. Knelt down, heaving as screams clawed at my lungs to be let out, I hopelessly searched the sky for that last piece of fluff. Maybe, just maybe, I could attach it back somehow, reverse the death and live a few moments longer with my flower. Thinking back to the times we'd wasted afternoons conversing about anything there possibly was to speak about, both sentiment and heartbreak poured into every vein within me.

I hadn’t dared move from the spot the white flower took its last breaths of life in, petrified that if I did it’d seal the fate of the already gone soul. Lightning pain shattered up my body and centered in my heart, it stung the corners of my body. Loss is never easy, shallow words such as sorrow can’t begin to describe the feeling of losing a vital piece of you. I could feel the flowers' life gone, could feel it in the way my world grew dimmer, or in the way that buzz of nature suddenly snapped into pure silence. Each white fluff that flew into the wind took a sliver of myself with it, I felt physically light with the loss of myself being so profound.

Yet I stayed by that bed, holding onto the wrinkled, colorless shell of what I had come to love and care for. She reminded me so much of a dandelion, especially as she had aged these last few years. Her beauty was never fleeting, but age progressively showing. As a dandelion did, she too grew white hair, she developed wrinkles across her surface, showing the beauty of a well lived life. My grandmother was old, yes, but she showed everyday she carried life within her. Not once did I believe her time would actually come, and maybe that’s why now it hits so hard.

I held tight to her hand, though it didn’t squeeze back, and that fact shattered me more than anything else. She had always squeezed back thrice, had always tucked my hair behind my ear afterward, and had always looked out the window as she spoke the words I never thought were nearing, “Your coin may be at the bottom of a wishing well, but that doesn’t mean it is gone, as you always carry that magic with you, my dear.” She would smile softly as she made sure to say the rest in a manner that would strike me to the heart, “I am your coin, Juniper. Don’t ever forget that.”

Every muscle became weaker within me, her hand felt like sandpaper beneath mine. I couldn’t bring myself to my feet, and maybe that was for the better, if I had to see her face devoid of life’s color I’d have a heart attack on the spot right now. My heart beat rises as I try to face the reality ahead of me. My forehead pressed firmly to the bed began to dot with cold sweat, tremors took hold of me as my breath chokes me in my own throat.

“This can’t be real. This cannot be real.” I squeezed her hand again pleading for her ritual just once more as I hollered, “Please god, wake her up right now. She was fine last night, take me back just twelve hours please. Allow me to make her final moments happier! Please!” I begged. My voice didn’t even sound like it belonged to me, desperation, pure panic is what controlled me. However no matter the chant, no matter the amount of groveling I did, my prayers were left unanswered. I unwound my hands from hers, gently placing it flat on the bed. A guttural scream erupted from me as I convulsed back to the floor, curling in a ball and fisting my eyes.

Pangs of guilt and grief cloaked my head, choking me and attempting to drag me under their full grasp. They wanted to ruin me, to taunt my grandmother's death and stomp over her frail stem of a body, she deserved better than that, I knew it. She deserved to know that I wouldn’t let grief consume me and smother my life as easily as hers was taken, and I wholeheartedly wish I could fulfill that for her.

I thought back to her saying, she was my coin, though not here with me physically she would be in spirit. What a load of bullshit.