Steemit Challenge s28wk2 : Remembering Through Healing

Pixabay

Tina hugged the old jacket. She was sad deeply. It was like her was truly gone, not just gone from the house but from everything she left behind.

After that, Tina touched something strange in the pocket of the Jacket. It was small and square. She pulled out a photograph. The photograph's corners was bent and faded.

The photograph was her who looked so young, sitting on the back steps right at the this house Tina was. She had a real and happy simile. She held a tiny white flower. Tina turned the back of the photograph and saw her mother's familiar handwriting, with words:

For George. A promise of new beginnings. Love, Clara.

Tina looked at words for a moment. A promise of new beginnings. Her father's name. Her heart beat faster. This was a secret message from the past. She had to show him.

Tina found her father in his workshop, sanding a piece of wood meanwhile the father wasn't really making anything. He was just moving his hands to keep his mind busy.

"Dad," she said.

He didn't look up. "What is it?"

She brought out the photograph. "I found this. In Mom's old jacket in the shed."

He stopped sanding. His shoulders stiffened. He looked the picture slowly from Tina and looked at it for a long time Then he turned it over and read the words.

His father's face changed. Tears started dropping from Tina's father, the tears created a path way through which the dust on his cheek, but he didn't wipe it away.

"This was when your mother didn't have birth to you," he said, his voice rough. "We had just bought this old house. It was a mess. We had no money. Your mother found this one flower growing in all the weeds. She said it was a sign... that we could build a good life here." He looked around the workshop, then back at the photo. "She always believed in new beginnings."

It was the most he had said about her in months.

That evening, the house felt different. The silence was not so heavy. Leo noticed their father was quiet, but not angry. He put his phone down.

Later, Tina was in the kitchen making tea. Her father came in. He stood for a moment, then spoke.

"Your mother... she would be proud of you, Tina. For coming home. For trying." He used her chosen name. It felt like a door opening. "I am ... I am not very good at this."

"I know, Dad," Tina said. "Me neither."

He nodded. "Maybe... maybe we can clean that shed tomorrow. Together."

The next day, they did. They didn't just throw things away. They told stories. Leo held up an old and looking watering can, which made her father laughed, a real laugh, telling a story about how Tina, as a little girl, had tried to water the cat with it.

Tina still had the pain of her mother inside of her. Tina knew it would always be there. But as they worked together, she understood the quiet truth she had been holding onto. Love doesn't leave. It was in the shared memory of her mother's laughter. It was in her father's tear. It was in this new beginning, fragile and hopeful, growing from the dust of the old.

The End

I invite @sampson01, @us-andrew, @imohmitch to join me in the SLC challenge.