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Lavender


faraway

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The start of.... well, I don't know what.

Lavender May Jones was old when she died. She was eighty-three, and although she wasn’t found until several days after her death, it had been on her eighty-third birthday that she had died.

‘She had a good run’, people said. ‘She had lived a good life’. This made them feel far better about the fact that they hadn’t been to visit her for three years, and regularly forgot to send her a birthday card.

Lavender disagreed. She had led an average life. She had had an average childhood, an average husband, average children, an average home and an average retirement; if we consider an average retirement to be many aches and pains, difficulty in performing basic tasks, and very few visits from loved ones. In amongst all this were several average jobs, some average hobbies, and average opinions. Opinions such as the young don’t know just how good they’ve got it, while contradictorily being of the opinion that ‘Things aren’t half as good as they used to be’, immigrants are destroying society and taking people’s jobs, brown misshapen cardigans and blue rinses are the height of fashion, and that this wouldn’t have happened in their day.

Yes. Altogether, Lavenders life was nothing more than mediocre. It had its highs and its lows and many, many regrets and what if’s.

But death? Death was altogether a different story.

On the 11th of May, 2010 at 21:20 hours after spending the day pottering about her pristine garden, and spending the evening watching the TV while sat comfortably next to the fire, despite the fact that television wasn’t anywhere near as good as it used to be, Lavender May Brown knew that she was going to die.

She knew because suddenly, there was no sadness.

Even during the days that she spent relaxing in her garden, taking such joy in watching the sparrows as they bravely danced around her feet to collect the bread she had given them, feeling the heat of the summer sun shining onto her face, and breathing in the fresh smell of the wild roses that grew just outside her kitchen door. Even on those days, there was something weighing her down.

A life-long culmination of regrets, of what ifs, of things she should have said but didn’t, places she should have gone, but now it’s too late, the people she could have helped, but didn’t have the time (or inclination). All of the questions, the where would I live? What would I have? Who would I be? If only! If only! If only things were different, if only things were better.

All these thoughts raced about Lavender’s subconscious. They went unnoticed by the brain, but the heart had felt them.

On the 11th of May, 2010, 21:20 hours, sadness left. It was at this point, Lavender knew that she was about to die. Briefly, it crossed her mind that she would never find out whodunnit, but when her husband appeared before her the television programme she was watching was no longer at the forefront of her mind.

Her husband was young again, the most handsome man she had ever seen, but he always was to her, whether young or old.

Lavender had heard stories before about what death was like. Seeing her husband was not unexpected, nor was her Mother, who stood behind him smiling and looking as radiant as Lavender imagined it was possible for any woman to look. What was unexpected though was the peace she felt, the love. The sheer joy of it all. She had heard of it, of course, from those crackpots who claim to have come back from the dead, but who could understand? Who could comprehend this feeling from sheer mortal words?

Albert smiled at her.

‘Come on then’, he said ‘I’ve been waiting’.

Lavender didn’t need an invitation; there was no hesitation, no temptation and not the slightest desire to stay. She simply rose up and followed him into the light, absorbing the purity and the love that it seemed to emanate.

She knew this light. She had seen it lately in her dreams. Other people have said the light spoke to them, but it didn’t speak. She felt it. She knew it was curious as to how she felt her life had been, and it knew the answer was dull, average, and I should have done more.

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I use to be afraid of death until I saw a ghost. Now I'm not, I look at it as a continuance of a journey that starts here on earth.

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That was a nice read....sad but nice.

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