I recently took a community writing workshop through Butler University and Hamilton County East Public Library. It was called Writing Tiny Truths: Unearth Your Story to Capture Life’s Small Moments as Memoir. According to our instructor, Susan Lerner "A Tiny Truth is a short piece of writing that closely explores a specific moment of your life so as to unearth its deeper meaning." Here's my first Tiny Truth...
My cousin, Diana, and I frequently spent the night together when we were little. We alternated whose house we stayed at. This particular morning, we were lying next to each other in her twin bed, dozing lightly, when we heard her father return home. I dreamily recalled that at some point during the night I had heard the phone ring and the sound of him rushing down the hallway and out the back door. Now that he had returned, we were wide awake and filled with curiosity. We slipped out of bed and in pjs and bare feet, scurried into his bedroom. We jumped into his tousled double bed. The slippery dark pink satin sheets, cool to the touch, were countered by the warmth of his arms as he drew us close.
My cousin began to pepper him with questions. “Where’ve you been daddy?”
“I went to say goodbye to Grandma,” he replied in a gruff early morning voice.
“Where’d she go?” Diana asked.
“She went to heaven." he responded quietly.
Our little brows furrowed as we pondered his answer. This was our first real brush with death and the thought of Grandma leaving to go to heaven in the middle of the night was confusing and scary.
“But...why, how? Diana stuttered.
“Grandma has had a long, full life and now it’s time for her to rest. God sent a beautiful golden plane down to pick her up and bring her to heaven where she can relax on one of his many clouds.”
I pictured Grandma ascending the stairs that led to the open doorway of the golden plane and pondered this beautiful, magical image of death, while snuggled safely next to my cousin, both of us in my uncle's comforting embrace.
