Fireflies (Part I -The Funeral)

This Story is partly inspired by some true events. But mostly is my imagination.

Hope you appreciate it. 


P.S : This is my first attempt in serious writing and I did write the entire story in a single stretch.. So am sure there would be a lot of portions that would need editing.
Please feel free to let me know how you felt.. comments, criticism and feedback are always welcome along with mark the portions which you feel needs re work..!!


With that said.. Read on...

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 24 September 2007

It was 8 AM in the morning when my phone rang. 

It was Annie.

Aunt Judith had died. Last night in sleep.

She was 75. My mother’s elder sister.

Feeling numb after hearing it, I pulled my car out of the garage and drove toward the old house. It was the house built by my grandfather when he moved in after he married my grandmother.

It was the house where Aunt Judith and my mother Grace were born.

In that order.

They called it Philo. It was Greek for love.

Years later we called it the old house.

The old house called Philo.

Where Aunt Judith and maa grew up. In different orders.

Aunt Judith never agreed to shift from the old house. She always insisted to stay there. Alone. It was like there was a part of her that had embedded itself to that house. a part that dint let her go anywhere. Even post her early divorce, she never let anybody stay back or think or make her feel vulnerable. She was quite independent and reserved person. She would hardly speak few sentences. 

She was the only person with whom I ever made a genuine attempt to stay in touch. I never spoke to any of my dad’s relatives. Honestly speaking, they never spoke to me. Not once after dad passed away. She hated my dad’s relatives. Just like she hated my father.

She was the only relative I had from my mother’s side. She was the only family I had apart from Casy. Later I realized that once upon a time, she was the only family my mother ever had.

I parked my car along the other side of the road in front of the old house. As I crossed the road I felt a strange squeeze in my heart.

Aunt Judith.

I recollected her from the last time I saw her sitting in the last but third row in the church attending the Sunday mass. Her voice when she called up to check how Casy-Casaurina was doing, day before yesterday when we spoke over the phone.  Casaurina-my wife. We were expecting a child by this year end.

I was walking towards the house.  Through the carefully planted garden that she took care of personally. The door was open. I went inside to find a lot of people surrounding her in the brown colored casket.

They were related to aunt. That meant they were related to me too. Relatives I never knew existed. Relatives who never knew I existed. We shared a few blank expression filled nods. Annie was the only familiar face I knew in the room apart from Aunt Judith. Annie was hired by aunty to assist her in the household works. But apparently aunty knew many of her people, or else why were they here?

Annie had her head covered and eyes partially swollen and red with tears. Aunt Judith dressed in all white with a rosary over the white colored gloves she was made to wear. She looked her usual. Calm, serene and peaceful. So normal that I was waiting for to wake up and look astonished at us and the white gloves. 

I liked her and she liked Casy more. Even at the age of 28, there were times when I felt I had more in my plate than I can handle; Aunt Judith was the person I would end up talking to apart from Casy. Not always she had an answer for all my problems but she definitely had a patient ear to listen to me.

2 hours later it all concluded. It all ended with Aunt Judith going down in her big brown box. There was a golden colored cross on its top. A glossy finished coffin for my Aunt. As she went down, I wondered if she would have liked it. She hated glossy stuffs. Matt was always seemed her choice. I still couldn’t believe that when I walk down to old house door and knock, Aunt Judith wouldn’t open the door anymore.

"Your smile, love and heart will be missed forever" was writing on the Grave stone.

On the stone where Aunt Judith now sleeps.

Aunt Judith the patient listener. In her brown glossy casket. 

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