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She only wanted to play checkers…
It was cold and dark as usual these days. Everything got a little darker since last week. She sat us down, patted our heads, I have cancer. I was too young to know what it was, or at least I think. I should have understood, I was 12, but then again I didn’t know that all her depression was because of it. She just lay there, looking outside the window in her pale beauty. Her skin stretched tight around her bones like plastic wrap on top of a Sunday’s salad. Why doesn’t your skin fit your hands? The Sunday school asked her, her sudden weight loss gaining extra skin everywhere. I smiled a little when she told me, it made her laugh. She loved kids, but her kids where the only thing she loved and loved and would never stop. It kept me going. Outside her room, there were those two chairs and that table. A rusted green, cast iron and old. Roses cascading along the side, the pale green so eager to be cleaned, dirty and old as usual. The same two chairs and tables we had tea parties on with root beer and candy, the same ones we played bartender at, the same ones we laughed on. She asked if we could sit out there, I got my brother to carry her outside, and I got her a blanket. She wrapped herself around tight in it, and she looked over the distance memories of our past. She watched the dogs play, that she bought just for us. She watched everything she ever had, right there, just in that moment, for the time. When I am old, she said softly, And alone, by myself with the dogs, you’ll come visit me? Won’t you? Yes I replied quietly. The wind blew a little, as if to say stop it, but she continued. You’ll be older, much and you’ll have kids all your own. I’ll be grey and old. You’ll come over and I’ll ask: Do you want to play checkers? And… I picked it up from there. And I will play and play and play till you can’t play anymore. She smiled a little bit. Good. Then when I am alone, you’ll be with me, and I won’t be lonely, and we can play checkers, just you and me. Yes. And that’s the only thing I remembered when I heard her silent screams. 7:32. That was all. Her voice, I love you, trailed off, and that was it… I stood at her grave, and the only thing I say is: She only wanted to play checkers…
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