The Songs He Used To Sing
October 27, 2020
Her eyes were icy grey, but the images from her youth tell you they used to be the color of the ocean. The fine lines between her eyes were a reflection of the fact that she had spent a lot of time thinking. Even still, she was often lost in thought with her snow colored brows stitched together. The big, velvet chair in the corner of her sitting room, the corner with the large window, had a stack of books next to it that would put Hermione Granger to shame. Even during the cooler months, that large window never closed; she would just wrap herself up in the large quilt her sister had made for her many years before, and sip her cinnamon tea. She kept a small sketchbook next to her at all times, not that her hands worked very well anymore, but she could still capture the essence better than many whose hands did work. Fingers which were once short and strong, seemed to have doubled in length as they grew thinner and the bones became more pronounced. In order to keep her hands as strong as she could, she had taught herself piano, and bought a small upright to set in the opposite corner of her sitting room. It was older than she was and the middle c key had been replaced twice, but she loved it and it loved her.
Sitting and visiting with her was easy and sweet. Her voice, which was once melodic, had grown gravely with age, still, she sang for you all of the love songs she wrote when she was young. Though she was well along in her years, she was wise beyond them; it was as though she had lived a thousand lifetimes. Her hugs were soft and full and there wasn’t a person that she met that didn’t get one. This didn’t make them feel any less special, quite the opposite, you knew for certain that she was so filled with love that she was not able to pour it all out on just you.
She spoke of the man that she had been married to and the way that he had proposed to her in the forest by her home after only two dates. The apples of her cheeks still grew cherry red speaking about him even though he had passed away many years before. Images swirled around in her mind of their beautiful life together and she spoke of him as if he would be coming home any moment, nothing was ever past tense, and she admired her wedding ring like she was a newly wed. Her memory was fading and fuzzy, and maybe that was why she spoke of him so highly, or maybe it was because she had found what we all search for. Freckles on his strong hands, the smell of his aftershave, the songs he used to sing to her; she recalled it all with such a melancholy bliss. She was not delusional. She knew he was not coming home. Still she hoped to see him soon and to be able to hear him sing to her again.
