Going Away

Going Away



A young woman steps through the doorway. Her footsteps are barely audible on the battered wooden floor. She moves slowly across the room and shrugs farther into the shawl around her shoulders, hoping to ward off the chill- and the stale smell of sickness- in the air.

Reaching where her mother lay, she gently straightens the older woman’s necklace and lovingly pushes a lock of hair back in its place. She hesitates, but only for a moment, before covering her mom’s frail hand with her own and bows her head in prayer.

A gray-haired man enters the room and comes to stand beside the young woman. He places a kind hand on her forearm and whispers “It is time to take her with me now, dear”. A single tear falls from her eye, shimmering as it passes through the man’s hand, and lands silently on her forearm.

The elderly couple make their way towards the door and disappear in a foggy haze, leaving their daughter behind to grieve.