Page 1 of Life To My Flight

Prologue

When we get old, I want you to move into the same nursing home as me, so then when I start forgetting who I am, we can become new friends.

-E-card

Cleo

2 years ago

I walked up to my mother’s grave. Gravel crunched underneath my boots as I followed the winding path from where I’d parked my truck.

The grass that had been green, only a month ago, was brown.

The leaves on the trees had gone from a nice, leafy green to brown, yellow, and red explosions of color.

Fall was in full swing.

Not only the weather had changed, though.

My demeanor, for one, had gone through a major overhaul.

The last time I’d been here, I’d been a wreck.

My mother had been my best friend. She’d been my confidant. My savior. My everything.

Then she’d had a heart attack while I was deployed overseas, and died as a result.

My father had died years ago, but words couldn’t explain how much more it hurt to lose my mom.

“Do you see, Nonnie? I wasn’t lying to you. Papa died a year ago,” a woman’s tired voice said from up ahead.

My eyes went from my destination, towards the direction the woman’s voice came from. I only saw their heads over the gravestones, though.

This cemetery was an old one. There were a ton of huge monuments, headstones, catacombs; even above ground crypts. This was the heart and soul of Natchitoches, Louisiana.

“No, child. I don’t understand. He was just with me yesterday. Ollie wouldn’t leave me like this. He just wouldn’t,” a frail elderly woman’s voice cried desolately.

My heart constricted as I listened to the woman weep uncontrollably.

“Oh, Nonnie. I’m so sorry,” the woman replied breathily.

I hung my head and walked to my mother’s grave, trying my hardest to ignore the sound of the crying going on from just across the foot path.

My mother’s grave was covered in flowers from my sisters.

They felt that the area should be beautiful, and I couldn’t disagree with them. My mom deserved the best, which was why I threw nearly two years of a paycheck at the burial plot that would allow her to be buried next to my father. Even if it meant displacing the prior occupant.

I sat down, leaning forward until my arms hung from my upraised knees. My head rested on my forearms, and I tried my hardest to let my brain tune out the pitiful wails of the old woman.

It was really pulling on my non-existent heartstrings.

“Ollie! Ollie! I’m right here. What are you doing way over there?” The old woman exclaimed.

I looked up to see the old woman barreling towards me as fast as her walker, decorated with hot pink tennis balls at the bottom, could carry her.

The woman, who I’d only seen at a cursory glance stood, and started forward.

However, the old woman, Nonnie, who was surprisingly fast and nimble in spite of her age, was gone before the woman had even gotten to her feet.

---