Letting Go | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Letting Go | Previous Challenge Entry
By Homer Tipton
05/29/08
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Cassie sat at the tiny dining room table and flipped through her mother’s photo album. The title adorning the tattered cover read “Our Family Home”. It had become her mother’s most prized possession during those final, agonizing months. She would stare at the pictures of her children for hours in the hospital, gently running her fingers across the fading pictures of their smiling faces. Cassie knew this because she was there. While her brothers had visited as often as their hectic lives would allow, she had stayed by her mother’s side throughout the entire excruciating ordeal.

It had been four days since the funeral. All three of her brothers had agreed that Cassie, the oldest child, should be entrusted to settle their mother’s affairs. This included the sale of their childhood home. Her cheeks still moist from the steady flow of tears, Cassie rose to tour the aging house one final time before heading out to catch an afternoon flight.

Jeremy, the youngest child, had taken his first steps in front of the swing on the front porch. Cassie remembered picking him up afterwards and parading him triumphantly through the house to their father, who barely lifted his eyes from the morning paper to take notice. But Mom was there, standing in the crowded kitchen next to the sink, grinning from ear to ear. Her beautiful face brimming with enough pride of two parents.

Dwayne, the long-haired rebel in the family, was notorious for locking himself in the bathroom for nearly an hour every morning while everyone else rushed around getting ready for school. Cassie could still see the burn marks on the counter from his ill-fated attempt to style his hair using their mother’s curling iron. She cringed at the memory of their Dad jerking off his belt and the resulting screams that echoed down from the upstairs hallway afterwards.

The bedroom at the top of the stairs belonged to Michael, Cassie’s oldest brother. It was the loudest and brightest corner of the house during most of her childhood. Michael was a big fan of rock music during the ‘70s and had the bell-bottomed, butterfly-collared wardrobe to match. That room was kept dark and quiet after he left home for college. When their father injured his back and could no longer work, their mother entertained the idea of renting it out for a time. But she could never bring herself to do it. She worked two jobs from that point on, sometimes taking a third during the summer.

Cassie approached her parent’s bedroom in the back of the house, but paused before entering the dimly lit space. It seemed so cold and uninviting with her mother gone. She always kept the room so bright and warm. This was the room where her father died. He was a hard man, difficult to know and even more difficult to love. But he was her Daddy and she had come to appreciate him in those final years. Her eyes settled on the wrought-iron bed where he spoke his final words. He apologized to his daughter for being such a lousy father, but she was hesitant to respond. Such tender moments were so rare that she was taken by surprise. In the silence that followed, she allowed him to die without ever knowing how much she loved him. She relied on memories of his callous nature to sour her heart towards him so she would never have to face this mistake.

Cassie returned to the dining room table and smiled at the deep gouges in its polished surface. The memory of slicing through craft paper with a razor-knife as a child leapt into her mind. She had been decorating a picture frame for her father’s birthday and didn’t realize the damage she was causing to the table underneath. It was one of the few times her father’s hand was stayed when his harsh brand of discipline had been warranted. The tears welled in her eyes as she recalled the image of her father’s ice-cold heart melting as she presented him the special gift.

The tears began to flow again. Tears for her father, nearly twenty years in the making, mingled with those she had recently cried for her mother. The symphony of emotion was overwhelming. In that moment, within walls containing so many speckled memories, Cassie finally found the peace she had been longing for. Forgiveness swept over her like a cascading waterfall, washing away years of bitterness and regret.

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