Page 109 - NS 2024

ere were tears in my own eyes. Anyone could understand why we were crying. “I didn’t even know she was a writer,” He said. “I knew she worked at a library, but I didn’t know she wrote. I didn’t know she cared about our stories. I would have never stopped if I’d known
she loved them so much.”
Without thinking about it, I hued Owen. We were both crying so much, trying not to
crinkle up our letters. Aer a few seconds, I turned my head around, looking at Sienna. She had just nished her letter, or perhaps she was rereading. I gestured for her to come over, and she joined us for a group hug. We held each other for a few moments. In the embrace of my two childhood playmates, I could feel all of our memories.
I was beyond excited to immerse myself in my mother’s pages, though the task of editing these books felt a bit over my head. I enjoyed the editing process, but it felt wrong of me to tamper with my mom’s words. I wanted to savor every single one since they were all that was le of her.
“Well Owen, it looks like you’re going to get money out of this aer all,” Sienna said through tears. We all laughed.
“Not yet. We have a lot of work in front of us before these books are published. We can start tomorrow morning,” Owen replied.
“I thought you had work in the morning,” I said.
Owen made a face. “Oh, screw that. is is more important.”
I looked at Sienna and she smiled. Tomorrow morning, perhaps she could braid my hair. If we
took a lunch break, I could make her a friendship bracelet and she could draw on my hand. I could get it tattooed. We could listen to Owen talk on and on about business and marketing.
It was another uest for us to go on together. I wondered when the last day we ever played together was. I wonder if any of us had any clue that it would be the last time. All things come to an end. I became aware of this earlier than most, I think. It took me until the age of twenty, though, to learn that just because something comes to an end, doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. Everything can be preserved in memory, in writing, in the connections you have with other human beings.
We are all creating stories every day, surviving the hardest parts of life so we can live to tell our tales. From fairytales to funerals, everything is a story waiting to be told.