Flowers for Suzy

Flowers for Suzy
By:
Keaton Foster

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **

"Such truth comes from the heart of me."

It can be said that for a story to be truly powerful there has to be some truth to it. That bits and pieces of the author's life must intermingle with the fictional painting that they are creating with the words they spill out on the empty canvas before them.

This tale holds many personal truths. I miss you Suzy.

Much beauty can be found in written words, especially when they express such a passionate love in the greatest of detail. The following words poetically crafted into sentences will attempt to lend meaning and accurately convey the truth of what this author believes is a masterpiece of love come and gone.

Love is an endless dream set in reality. A deep acknowledgement and belief in someone else to the point where they easily become everything. The reality is that love is there to be felt by all of us as long we try to do all we can to embrace it.

That being said, there is a dark, terrible, unrelenting side of love. A side of love that at one point or another in life everyone must face. That everyone must embrace.

I am no different than most, except for one significant detail. As I write this message of loss for the world to read, I am deep within the depths of the brutally painful and eventual side of love.

For my Suzy...

My dream has come to its end and it has quickly become impossible for me to deal with. I had love, and now I have lost it in debilitating ways. Sadly, I remain crippled by the unrelenting pain associated with losing my love.

I am unable to move beyond the prison that I now find myself in. Alone is such a terrible place to be. Alone feels like forever when you know that you will never again have the will or the strength to love another as you did before. For me, at this point I can only hope that in death I will be reunited with her, my one true love.

It is a sad fact that I do little to hide.

There is not much in this life that I feel I have done absolutely right. Confidence in all that I have done wrong seems to be excessively expressed by me without me even knowing it. Maybe the familiarity of my failures has led me to become so mired down in them that they are more part of me than anything else in my life.

Little in this life has given joy, or a feeling of accomplishment. However, there is one exception to my dire outlook of this monumental failure I endure.

One thing that I continually return to as my saving grace, my salvation, and my only true redeeming quality. My absolute, unwavering, undeniable, unconditional love for my sweet Suzy.

I met her twenty-three years ago today, seems like such a short time in the grand scheme of it all. Suzy Johnson was her maiden name, before she took mine. I met her at the old crossroads diner, a place that has long since disappeared from the landscape of my life.

She was there with her mother, having brunch after church one sweet Sunday morning. We went to the same church, but to tell you the truth I was too busy praying to God to send me an angel that I never noticed her.

On that day, in that second as she crossed my path I knew I was hooked. It took me three years of chasing after her to convince her to date me. Like me, she had been through a bad relationship, and was a bit gun shy when it came to love.

In time, we would both get over our fears, and find ourselves deeply and hopelessly in each other's eternal loving embrace.

Once married we wasted little time picking up where our once vibrant love lives had left off. We often talked of kids and of our future together. We talked of all of our dreams as both individuals as well as a couple.

Suzy and I seemed to have it all in that brief period of our lives. Twenty-three years seems like a long time to most, but to me it was just a flicker in an inferno.

On this day as I walk through the vast green prairie that unfolds before me, I close my eyes and picture my sweet Suzy.

Her endless smile shines. The curves of her face are as soft as the clouds in the clear blue sky. Her emerald green eyes shine. They express all that she is without as much as a word.

Her body flows like an endless river of possibilities. Each curve, each bend is mesmerizing. I can still feel them as I run my fingers along the edge of the heaven she embodied.

A single tear falls to the ground, a tear not of pain, but a tear of remembrance of her.

On this day, I am here in the meadows of life we often walked through together as a couple. I am here looking for the perfect flowers for my sweet Suzy.

The sun shines down from the heavens above. Its warmness touches my face in somber ways.

Across the meadow, I see a doe and her fawn. They are grazing on a patch of wild blueberries. The love of a mother to a child is conveyed in the subtle ways that she tends to her fawn. Nature is all abound, in full bloom this place is a marvelous example of all that is right in this world.

Suzy and I have walked this same stretch of earth countless times. She always looked her best in the morning sun. Her long flowing hair shined in its rays. Her endless eyes reflected the golden light of the sun, amplifying it a million times.

She was my everything in this place, she was my love, my wife, the center of the universe brought down from the heavens for me to hold tight. She was my friend, she was my lover, and she was my mistress in the moons light. She was all that I could have ever hoped someone in my life could be.

The flowers I choose must be perfect. They must shine in the golden light as she did. They must represent all that she was in this place.

As I walk about the familiar green prairie, I continue to search for the flowers that will accurately represent all that she is and was to me.

For hours that seemed like days I search, and finally, there before me in the suns golden light I spot a group of yellow flowers softly swaying in the summer's breeze. They shine in the sun, their petals are soft as silk, and their blossoms look like jewels to my eyes.

I am drawn to their absolute beauty. I reach down and one by one pluck them from the suns golden embrace. I take them away from all they have ever known. I remove them from the soil they call mother. They shall surely dry and wilt away. Their fate has been sealed by me, and my need to express my love for Suzy.

I must deliver them fast to her so that their true beauty is conveyed. She deserves nothing less than a perfect bouquet.

These flowers are for you Suzy, I say to myself as I pluck them from earth and place them in a basket nearby. They are perfect. You will not be disappointed.

In time, I reach my final destination as well as Suzy's. The golden sun shines down on her. The marble of her gravestone stands cold in the suns golden light. Each painstakingly carved word of her epitaph rings true.

The old flowers placed by me the day before have all but wilted away. I kneel down before my sweet love and replace the wilted flowers with the new ones that will represent life for a time. I will continue to return every day. For months, I have been placing flowers on her grave.

I lay down of the ground next to her, a spot reserved for only me. I stare often into Heavens eternal abyss. I know she is there, looking down upon me.

As I have many times before, I speak my words knowing that Suzy will hear them in her new place. Her eternal home devoid of me for a time.

You were my everything in this place, my love, my wife, the mother of my child. My friend, my lover, my mistress in the moons light. I miss you so much my sweet Suzy.

Rest in peace.

These flowers are to let you know that I still love you.

I lay there all day, for me there is little else that I can do. In time the night comes, darkness falls close. It will not relent until a new day's sun comes back this way.

I make my way home, back to all that I know without her.

I will return, just as I have since her end. I will find the perfect flowers for her. I will place them upon her grave to let her know that a love like ours will never end…









Flowers for Suzy Keaton Foster Copyright © 2011