Post by DGX on Dec 11, 2007 15:56:17 GMT -5
Loss.
What is it about loss that makes it so painful? Is it the void that it leaves in your soul, that knawing pain in your insides that tells you that this event, this happening hurts you? Loss is a funny creature because it’s so different from person to person, situation to situation. Maybe seeing the train light a few years down the tracks makes it a little easier to take, like you’re able to brace yourself because you know it’s coming. You have a schedule, you can prepare, distance yourself, maybe even be able to turn your head before that train hits what’s important to you and takes it from you…forever. But that’s the problem of a phenomenon like death isn’t it? You never know when it’s coming. I’m just in my early twenties, seemingly with the world in front of me and nothing but promise. But who’s to say I don’t get up following a hard day of studying and leave the University campus only to get ploughed over on the sidewalk by some drunk frat idiot attempting to drive home?
You never know when your number is up…but now and then situations arise that no one can really help. If you could know exactly when you were going to die, and how, would you want to know? What if it was closer than you wanted it to be? How do you take that? I guess what really irks me is when good people have gotten older and their bodies fail them. My grandmother on my dad’s side, that was rough to see…her mind tearing itself apart, not aware of where she was or what was happening. Seeing how worn out and beaten she looked after each dialysis session, it tore me up a little bit each time. But out of instinct perhaps I distanced myself, stopped visiting as often, prepared myself for the fact that much sooner than later I’d be without the woman who had a large part in my upbringing. The one who got me whatever I desired, fed me until I could not possibly eat one more bite of anything, she looked after me and saw that I was never left wanting. Someone as kind hearted as that, and where the fvck did God get off putting her through that? What the fvck is His problem? More and more I got angry at God. Just who the fvck was He to put this kind of punishment on one of his most devout followers and someone who adhered to His supposed principals? It was as senseless as the USA going and beating the snot out of Iraq shortly after an Arab terrorist cell bitch slapped them in the face. “Live your life according to My word and you shall be rewarded…with your body failing you and your mind tearing itself to shreds.”
When grandpa went before her it was unexpected. It completely destroyed any kind of foundation I had at that point. I fell to pieces when that happened, and to this day I feel bad because I didn’t love him more than I love my grandma, I loved them both dearly yet when I heard he was gone, and he no time to prepare, no indication, I had literally just had a milkshake with him two days prior. He was fine. Struggling to look after himself without grandma but he was getting by, keeping his spirits up. I completely fell to pieces. But a couple of weeks later when I got the phone message from dad that grandma had passed…I barely met it with a nod. Not even a shrug, much less tears. And now…just as I’m finishing my first year at University, not doing too bad I don’t think, just as I was turning in my last essays after a whole week buried in a library I thought that maybe, just maybe I could catch a break, go swimming, relax and worry about nothing for a weekend but no, didn’t work out that way. So apparently now my only surviving grandmother has a terminal illness that’s going to destroy her vital organs via her immune system. Another great lady who in my mind has been a very good lady and done many great things to me and her three children in her life, and now here she must spend the next ten years of her life in limbo of on again off again attacks by this fvcking bug…and I am left having to ask again…God, what the hell? Seriously now, the fvck is wrong with you?!
I know, a lot of people who are of stronger faith than I will all say the same thing, God has a plan, blah blah blah but really. What the hell is up with this? Nothing really I can do about it I know, but even if God were a real corporeal being of unlimited power, I’d still call Him out on it. I wouldn’t mind getting right in His face and telling Him point blank that I don’t like it. I guess that’s just me though…but I completely never bought this whole scripture version of God like in Job who said I do what I want because I’m beyond you. That’s a cop out, plain and simple. Not wanting to have to answer for your own actions, not wanting to be accountable.
And in my experience, parents or people who are supposed to be guides of some kind that follow that model, well their children never turn out that well. Oh well, not like it worked out that way for God. I mean take a look at the world today and all God’s children in it. Oh wait…
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth…”
The priest’s words ring hollow before the small assembly in the wind swept field, everyone there in mourning, a large collage of black that generate their own pensive cloud of despair and deep reflection, barely restrained emotion bottled firmly within the confines of each of their hearts. It’s only been a week or two since Arthur Marcus Valentine’s life came to an unexpected end, no real medical reason, leading the world to believe that maybe God had just called his number. At the front and center of the gathering sit three figures, the man sits straight up, his shoulders back, his face expressionless, his eyes dry, and his gaze intense. To his left sits an older woman, clad in a black dress and a large black hat, veil drawn down to conceal her age worn features, her swollen, tear filled eyes. She’s a widow now, the only man that she ever loved, the one who courted her, married her and given her the life she had desired since she was a little girl, gone. They had one child, a daughter and she had never liked their ways. Always wanted to do her own thing and get with the times…couldn’t wait to get away from them. She wasn’t even in attendance. Only one good thing had ever come of her and thank God for him.
The woman looks at the man who sits at the center of the mass, keeping his own pain, his own emotion under tight lock and key. He didn’t allow himself to be vulnerable, not here. Not now, he needed to be the strong one. The one who held the others up, he was the man of the family now, and her Arthur had taught him what that meant. Even as she rested her head on his shoulder and quietly whimpered and wept with the grief of her loss, she felt his sincerity, his supportive grasp of her unsteady hand. He really was a good boy, he had made Arthur proud though he had never really been capable of telling him that. She knew he didn’t do well with matters of the heart…he wasn’t even really that comfortable discussion and expressing those kinds of feelings even with her. But when their daughter had run off and tried to make it on her own…she had been taken advantage of. The world that she had run blindly into chewed her up and spit her out, and probably still was beating her at every turn. Arthur was always so hard on himself for her…so when she had come home and put her grandson in her arms for the first time, Arthur swore he would not fail him as he had failed her. It was a terrible shame…because he didn’t fail her, she had failed him. Both of them, and miserably but fortunately God gave them something good from it. Taking a silent moment from her grief, as she restrained her sobs she thanked God for the man whom had made their lives truly complete.
To the right of the man sits a younger woman, just in the prime of her life. Even in black, with tear swollen eyes, she’s still the picture of beauty. As the man stares ahead and keeps himself together in this trying time, he knows full well that she’s the glue that is holding him together. Her hand on his knee, her head against his arm…the real pain she feels for him, his loss. It was no wonder that dad had liked her, why she had bonded so easily with his family because she had instantly made them her own. In the back of his own mind he knew ostensibly with his life he should be happy…after all, what was lacking?
He was a talented superstar in a booming business, he had just got the call up from toiling in house shows and even captured his first meaningful championship by knocking out a celebrated WFWF legend. He had the love and support of the most beautiful woman in the world, he was certain that she would follow him anywhere, stay with him through anything. The love and the relationship they had could withstand anything, it had been tumultuous getting there make absolutely no mistake about it. Winning over her, her father, getting the respect in his neighbourhood, in his whole town had not been the easiest task in the world! Everyone originally just brushed him off as a chrome plated actor. A shuckster who only talked big but didn’t have the tools to deliver on his boasts. Slowly but surely he’d proven them all wrong, and bit by bit people had had no choice but to respect him and what he did. Whether he got it by busting your teeth with a knuckle sandwich, taking your ride’s pink by knocking you up and down a road, or by scooping your dolly on you…at the end of the day everyone learned to respect Johnny Valentine because he was exactly what he said he was.
But therein lied the problem at its root. Respect in that place, in that world was not as easy to come by. Honestly, Valentine was at a loss for the hell else he could do to earn it. He started in the minors, just like everyone else. He bulldozed his way out of there as quickly as anyone in there, in fact other than some Clyde named Deville, he was the name that popped up most when people talked about the house show boys. Many tried to put him down, some just vicariously as a by product of other plans they’d had like Obo, or some had specifically targeted him, like CBT. Both of them met the same fate…defeat. And he’d won out in a tournament, on a poll and everything and on a big pay per view stage, his pay per view debut in fact, he creamed Yukio Blaze so badly the fream had been knocked clean out. Valentine didn’t even have to pin him…he’d beaten him so badly he couldn’t have gotten up if he’d wanted to. And Valentine took his title with that win too…only to have the jilted nosebleed interfere in his scheduled Hardcore X title defence against Trace Demon. Blaze took his Hardcore X belt…but he didn’t beat him to do it. And now here he was against a fallen main eventer, someone who everyone said was so great when he tried.
So here Valentine was, the International champion, a former Hardcore X and double champion, undefeated, last man eliminated from the Scars and Stripes battle royal and all this in just about four months with the company. And what’s the first thing Calvin Lee asks him about their match? “Hey, if I beat you, why don’t you face me again at Superbrawl with the title on the line?” Trying to play it all polite, respectful, cool. What a crock of bull, he may as well of said “when I beat you I want a shot at your title”! Because this fream like CBT, like Blaze, like Obo, and like every other main level guy he’d faced thought the same thing. That because he rode to the ring in a vintage car, with a brunette in a poodle skirt, wore jeans and a leather jacket and lived life the way he did, that he was nothing more than a joke. They all thought it was a cute little novelty him holding the title, having the success he’d had. Never mind of his accomplishments or anything…they all probably had the same image of what they thought would happen in a match and it probably went to the effect of this…
The bell rings.
Valentine casts off his leather and smacks the leg of his satin pants and gets a mic.
“Why this car is…AUTOMATIC…”
Valentine honestly didn’t know what else he could possible do to dispel that image, but no matter what he did everyone thought of him as a great big punch line. Calvin especially pissed him off, just who the hell was he to laugh at Valentine or what he was about? He was busy beating up his friends and walking around with a big stupid grin on his face, you want to talk about a laugh track, Calvin should have “rain drops keep falling on my head” playing in the background as he walks around the back. But Calvin’s fate would be exactly the same as everyone else who stepped up to him and took him as a joke…who thought they were beyond him. He would wind up flat on his back staring at lights wondering where he was and what just happened to him. He like everyone else would learn what Arthur Valentine had made sure to teach Johnny before he went…and that was the very simple fact that his people and his way of life were nothing to laugh about.
Abruptly a tingling in the back of his neck snapped Johnny Valentine out of his thoughts. He felt it there, just at the edge of his perceptions, he was being watched. Keeping his motions very cool and collected so as not to harm or disrupt the two women leaning on each of his shoulders, Valentine gazed around the cemetery…following the feeling. He was aware, you knew when you were being intently gazed at, and it was just an unmistakeable feeling. He tracked his eyes across the cemetery, there…under one of the larger trees, the weeping willow. He couldn’t make out details, it was definitely a woman by the curves. She was dressed in black, alone, with one of those large hats with the veil down. Valentine couldn’t quite understand why she stood so far back…he didn’t think there were any other burial services today. Roxy raised her head from his shoulder…
“Is everything okay baby?”
Valentine narrowed his eyes, before he looked down at her and allowed the barest of reassuring smiles and nodding before looking back up to the woman. She seemed transfixed by him, but when his gaze met hers he could see it was almost like right there she wanted to leave. He turned back from her and watched the priest as he finished the last of his passages from the Bible and spoke Arthur Valentine’s last rites before nodding to Valentine. He rose from his seat and walked over to the small box that contained the ashes of the man who was his grandfather by blood, but truly the only father he’d ever known. He put his hands on the box, running his fingers over the smooth texture of the box and gazing down upon it, a single tear escaping his left eye before he lifted the box and walked over to the open plot in front of the headstone. The marble stone said it all…
Arthur Marcus Valentine
Grandfather, Husband, Father
Ever Remembered
He put the box into the hole and paused as a tremor of grief ran through his form. He paused to catch his breath, to gain his air, but his being screamed. He couldn’t do this…this wasn’t right, it shouldn’t have…
A hand on his back, he swallows hard. Glancing back, Roxy is there, steadying him giving him the strength, the ability to hold it together. She gives him a nod and rubs his back and slowly his composure regains itself. With a deep breath he puts the box into the ground, his grandmother standing to the left of him, her hands clasped in front of her as she silently weeps, grieving as the three of them say a wordless goodbye to Arthur Valentine as Johnny puts the earth back into the hole, completing the burial. Wishes of encouragement and condolences for the loss follow from the gathering, before Roxy takes mom home, but Johnny stays. He squats on his haunches and gazes at the headstone, trying to find strength, reason…something to help him make sense of it all. Taking a breath he speaks aloud…
“I saw you at the service. Why didn’t you join the congregation?”
A light female voice answers him.
“I didn’t think it all together proper for me to.”
Valentine turns away from the headstone and stands. The woman stands there, her veil still drawn, her head tilted downwards. Valentine nods before gesturing to the headstone…
“Did you know dad?”
“Once, a long time ago. He was such a kind man, so gentle, he always looked after me…”
Valentine smirked.
“Well you knew him well before me then, he was always tough as nails on me. But it just meant that he cared, besides I’m not resentful anymore of his treatment of me growing up. It’s helped me get to where I am in life and on top of that he had a good reason to be.”
“And what reason was that?”
“My mother. Grandma told me about her earlier, I guess he was real easy on her growing up and she’d gotten totally warped notions about the world, and the world chewed her up and spat her out. I was the result of one of those lessons of life I’m told…”
“That’s terrible…I’m so…”
“Don’t be,” Valentine cut her off, “in truth I’m glad. Because at least she had the sense to give me to him and mom, God knows what I would of looked like if she’d tried to raise me. No head on her shoulders that one.”
A long silence ensues. Valentine looks around and steps back to allow her to see the headstone. She squats down and gazes at the stone before laying down a single rose on the grave. Probably one of dad’s girls, he’d never had any other girls than grandma after he's married her but he’d been quite the ladies man before he’d settled down. All that talk about his mom actually reminded him of Calvin for a moment, because in all honesty…he and Valentine’s mom would have something in common after he defeated him. They both would probably make excuses for it. He could see the crying loser now, bemoaning how he wasn’t ready! How he wasn’t motivated! This brings a smile to the face of Johnny Valentine.
“So…how did you know dad?”
The woman’s shoulders slump. She stands and turns to Valentine, and with her right hand reaches up and sandy blond curls spill from beneath the hat, and abruptly Valentine’s smile vanishes. The woman is considerably younger than he was expecting, full lips, soft cheeks a prominent nose just like dad’s…and eyes just like his own. A snarl quickly captures his features as he cannot grasp the audacity, the sheer unmitigated gall she has to show…
“Jonathan, is that anyway to look upon your mother?”
What is it about loss that makes it so painful? Is it the void that it leaves in your soul, that knawing pain in your insides that tells you that this event, this happening hurts you? Loss is a funny creature because it’s so different from person to person, situation to situation. Maybe seeing the train light a few years down the tracks makes it a little easier to take, like you’re able to brace yourself because you know it’s coming. You have a schedule, you can prepare, distance yourself, maybe even be able to turn your head before that train hits what’s important to you and takes it from you…forever. But that’s the problem of a phenomenon like death isn’t it? You never know when it’s coming. I’m just in my early twenties, seemingly with the world in front of me and nothing but promise. But who’s to say I don’t get up following a hard day of studying and leave the University campus only to get ploughed over on the sidewalk by some drunk frat idiot attempting to drive home?
You never know when your number is up…but now and then situations arise that no one can really help. If you could know exactly when you were going to die, and how, would you want to know? What if it was closer than you wanted it to be? How do you take that? I guess what really irks me is when good people have gotten older and their bodies fail them. My grandmother on my dad’s side, that was rough to see…her mind tearing itself apart, not aware of where she was or what was happening. Seeing how worn out and beaten she looked after each dialysis session, it tore me up a little bit each time. But out of instinct perhaps I distanced myself, stopped visiting as often, prepared myself for the fact that much sooner than later I’d be without the woman who had a large part in my upbringing. The one who got me whatever I desired, fed me until I could not possibly eat one more bite of anything, she looked after me and saw that I was never left wanting. Someone as kind hearted as that, and where the fvck did God get off putting her through that? What the fvck is His problem? More and more I got angry at God. Just who the fvck was He to put this kind of punishment on one of his most devout followers and someone who adhered to His supposed principals? It was as senseless as the USA going and beating the snot out of Iraq shortly after an Arab terrorist cell bitch slapped them in the face. “Live your life according to My word and you shall be rewarded…with your body failing you and your mind tearing itself to shreds.”
When grandpa went before her it was unexpected. It completely destroyed any kind of foundation I had at that point. I fell to pieces when that happened, and to this day I feel bad because I didn’t love him more than I love my grandma, I loved them both dearly yet when I heard he was gone, and he no time to prepare, no indication, I had literally just had a milkshake with him two days prior. He was fine. Struggling to look after himself without grandma but he was getting by, keeping his spirits up. I completely fell to pieces. But a couple of weeks later when I got the phone message from dad that grandma had passed…I barely met it with a nod. Not even a shrug, much less tears. And now…just as I’m finishing my first year at University, not doing too bad I don’t think, just as I was turning in my last essays after a whole week buried in a library I thought that maybe, just maybe I could catch a break, go swimming, relax and worry about nothing for a weekend but no, didn’t work out that way. So apparently now my only surviving grandmother has a terminal illness that’s going to destroy her vital organs via her immune system. Another great lady who in my mind has been a very good lady and done many great things to me and her three children in her life, and now here she must spend the next ten years of her life in limbo of on again off again attacks by this fvcking bug…and I am left having to ask again…God, what the hell? Seriously now, the fvck is wrong with you?!
I know, a lot of people who are of stronger faith than I will all say the same thing, God has a plan, blah blah blah but really. What the hell is up with this? Nothing really I can do about it I know, but even if God were a real corporeal being of unlimited power, I’d still call Him out on it. I wouldn’t mind getting right in His face and telling Him point blank that I don’t like it. I guess that’s just me though…but I completely never bought this whole scripture version of God like in Job who said I do what I want because I’m beyond you. That’s a cop out, plain and simple. Not wanting to have to answer for your own actions, not wanting to be accountable.
And in my experience, parents or people who are supposed to be guides of some kind that follow that model, well their children never turn out that well. Oh well, not like it worked out that way for God. I mean take a look at the world today and all God’s children in it. Oh wait…
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth…”
The priest’s words ring hollow before the small assembly in the wind swept field, everyone there in mourning, a large collage of black that generate their own pensive cloud of despair and deep reflection, barely restrained emotion bottled firmly within the confines of each of their hearts. It’s only been a week or two since Arthur Marcus Valentine’s life came to an unexpected end, no real medical reason, leading the world to believe that maybe God had just called his number. At the front and center of the gathering sit three figures, the man sits straight up, his shoulders back, his face expressionless, his eyes dry, and his gaze intense. To his left sits an older woman, clad in a black dress and a large black hat, veil drawn down to conceal her age worn features, her swollen, tear filled eyes. She’s a widow now, the only man that she ever loved, the one who courted her, married her and given her the life she had desired since she was a little girl, gone. They had one child, a daughter and she had never liked their ways. Always wanted to do her own thing and get with the times…couldn’t wait to get away from them. She wasn’t even in attendance. Only one good thing had ever come of her and thank God for him.
The woman looks at the man who sits at the center of the mass, keeping his own pain, his own emotion under tight lock and key. He didn’t allow himself to be vulnerable, not here. Not now, he needed to be the strong one. The one who held the others up, he was the man of the family now, and her Arthur had taught him what that meant. Even as she rested her head on his shoulder and quietly whimpered and wept with the grief of her loss, she felt his sincerity, his supportive grasp of her unsteady hand. He really was a good boy, he had made Arthur proud though he had never really been capable of telling him that. She knew he didn’t do well with matters of the heart…he wasn’t even really that comfortable discussion and expressing those kinds of feelings even with her. But when their daughter had run off and tried to make it on her own…she had been taken advantage of. The world that she had run blindly into chewed her up and spit her out, and probably still was beating her at every turn. Arthur was always so hard on himself for her…so when she had come home and put her grandson in her arms for the first time, Arthur swore he would not fail him as he had failed her. It was a terrible shame…because he didn’t fail her, she had failed him. Both of them, and miserably but fortunately God gave them something good from it. Taking a silent moment from her grief, as she restrained her sobs she thanked God for the man whom had made their lives truly complete.
To the right of the man sits a younger woman, just in the prime of her life. Even in black, with tear swollen eyes, she’s still the picture of beauty. As the man stares ahead and keeps himself together in this trying time, he knows full well that she’s the glue that is holding him together. Her hand on his knee, her head against his arm…the real pain she feels for him, his loss. It was no wonder that dad had liked her, why she had bonded so easily with his family because she had instantly made them her own. In the back of his own mind he knew ostensibly with his life he should be happy…after all, what was lacking?
He was a talented superstar in a booming business, he had just got the call up from toiling in house shows and even captured his first meaningful championship by knocking out a celebrated WFWF legend. He had the love and support of the most beautiful woman in the world, he was certain that she would follow him anywhere, stay with him through anything. The love and the relationship they had could withstand anything, it had been tumultuous getting there make absolutely no mistake about it. Winning over her, her father, getting the respect in his neighbourhood, in his whole town had not been the easiest task in the world! Everyone originally just brushed him off as a chrome plated actor. A shuckster who only talked big but didn’t have the tools to deliver on his boasts. Slowly but surely he’d proven them all wrong, and bit by bit people had had no choice but to respect him and what he did. Whether he got it by busting your teeth with a knuckle sandwich, taking your ride’s pink by knocking you up and down a road, or by scooping your dolly on you…at the end of the day everyone learned to respect Johnny Valentine because he was exactly what he said he was.
But therein lied the problem at its root. Respect in that place, in that world was not as easy to come by. Honestly, Valentine was at a loss for the hell else he could do to earn it. He started in the minors, just like everyone else. He bulldozed his way out of there as quickly as anyone in there, in fact other than some Clyde named Deville, he was the name that popped up most when people talked about the house show boys. Many tried to put him down, some just vicariously as a by product of other plans they’d had like Obo, or some had specifically targeted him, like CBT. Both of them met the same fate…defeat. And he’d won out in a tournament, on a poll and everything and on a big pay per view stage, his pay per view debut in fact, he creamed Yukio Blaze so badly the fream had been knocked clean out. Valentine didn’t even have to pin him…he’d beaten him so badly he couldn’t have gotten up if he’d wanted to. And Valentine took his title with that win too…only to have the jilted nosebleed interfere in his scheduled Hardcore X title defence against Trace Demon. Blaze took his Hardcore X belt…but he didn’t beat him to do it. And now here he was against a fallen main eventer, someone who everyone said was so great when he tried.
So here Valentine was, the International champion, a former Hardcore X and double champion, undefeated, last man eliminated from the Scars and Stripes battle royal and all this in just about four months with the company. And what’s the first thing Calvin Lee asks him about their match? “Hey, if I beat you, why don’t you face me again at Superbrawl with the title on the line?” Trying to play it all polite, respectful, cool. What a crock of bull, he may as well of said “when I beat you I want a shot at your title”! Because this fream like CBT, like Blaze, like Obo, and like every other main level guy he’d faced thought the same thing. That because he rode to the ring in a vintage car, with a brunette in a poodle skirt, wore jeans and a leather jacket and lived life the way he did, that he was nothing more than a joke. They all thought it was a cute little novelty him holding the title, having the success he’d had. Never mind of his accomplishments or anything…they all probably had the same image of what they thought would happen in a match and it probably went to the effect of this…
The bell rings.
Valentine casts off his leather and smacks the leg of his satin pants and gets a mic.
“Why this car is…AUTOMATIC…”
Valentine honestly didn’t know what else he could possible do to dispel that image, but no matter what he did everyone thought of him as a great big punch line. Calvin especially pissed him off, just who the hell was he to laugh at Valentine or what he was about? He was busy beating up his friends and walking around with a big stupid grin on his face, you want to talk about a laugh track, Calvin should have “rain drops keep falling on my head” playing in the background as he walks around the back. But Calvin’s fate would be exactly the same as everyone else who stepped up to him and took him as a joke…who thought they were beyond him. He would wind up flat on his back staring at lights wondering where he was and what just happened to him. He like everyone else would learn what Arthur Valentine had made sure to teach Johnny before he went…and that was the very simple fact that his people and his way of life were nothing to laugh about.
Abruptly a tingling in the back of his neck snapped Johnny Valentine out of his thoughts. He felt it there, just at the edge of his perceptions, he was being watched. Keeping his motions very cool and collected so as not to harm or disrupt the two women leaning on each of his shoulders, Valentine gazed around the cemetery…following the feeling. He was aware, you knew when you were being intently gazed at, and it was just an unmistakeable feeling. He tracked his eyes across the cemetery, there…under one of the larger trees, the weeping willow. He couldn’t make out details, it was definitely a woman by the curves. She was dressed in black, alone, with one of those large hats with the veil down. Valentine couldn’t quite understand why she stood so far back…he didn’t think there were any other burial services today. Roxy raised her head from his shoulder…
“Is everything okay baby?”
Valentine narrowed his eyes, before he looked down at her and allowed the barest of reassuring smiles and nodding before looking back up to the woman. She seemed transfixed by him, but when his gaze met hers he could see it was almost like right there she wanted to leave. He turned back from her and watched the priest as he finished the last of his passages from the Bible and spoke Arthur Valentine’s last rites before nodding to Valentine. He rose from his seat and walked over to the small box that contained the ashes of the man who was his grandfather by blood, but truly the only father he’d ever known. He put his hands on the box, running his fingers over the smooth texture of the box and gazing down upon it, a single tear escaping his left eye before he lifted the box and walked over to the open plot in front of the headstone. The marble stone said it all…
Arthur Marcus Valentine
Grandfather, Husband, Father
Ever Remembered
He put the box into the hole and paused as a tremor of grief ran through his form. He paused to catch his breath, to gain his air, but his being screamed. He couldn’t do this…this wasn’t right, it shouldn’t have…
A hand on his back, he swallows hard. Glancing back, Roxy is there, steadying him giving him the strength, the ability to hold it together. She gives him a nod and rubs his back and slowly his composure regains itself. With a deep breath he puts the box into the ground, his grandmother standing to the left of him, her hands clasped in front of her as she silently weeps, grieving as the three of them say a wordless goodbye to Arthur Valentine as Johnny puts the earth back into the hole, completing the burial. Wishes of encouragement and condolences for the loss follow from the gathering, before Roxy takes mom home, but Johnny stays. He squats on his haunches and gazes at the headstone, trying to find strength, reason…something to help him make sense of it all. Taking a breath he speaks aloud…
“I saw you at the service. Why didn’t you join the congregation?”
A light female voice answers him.
“I didn’t think it all together proper for me to.”
Valentine turns away from the headstone and stands. The woman stands there, her veil still drawn, her head tilted downwards. Valentine nods before gesturing to the headstone…
“Did you know dad?”
“Once, a long time ago. He was such a kind man, so gentle, he always looked after me…”
Valentine smirked.
“Well you knew him well before me then, he was always tough as nails on me. But it just meant that he cared, besides I’m not resentful anymore of his treatment of me growing up. It’s helped me get to where I am in life and on top of that he had a good reason to be.”
“And what reason was that?”
“My mother. Grandma told me about her earlier, I guess he was real easy on her growing up and she’d gotten totally warped notions about the world, and the world chewed her up and spat her out. I was the result of one of those lessons of life I’m told…”
“That’s terrible…I’m so…”
“Don’t be,” Valentine cut her off, “in truth I’m glad. Because at least she had the sense to give me to him and mom, God knows what I would of looked like if she’d tried to raise me. No head on her shoulders that one.”
A long silence ensues. Valentine looks around and steps back to allow her to see the headstone. She squats down and gazes at the stone before laying down a single rose on the grave. Probably one of dad’s girls, he’d never had any other girls than grandma after he's married her but he’d been quite the ladies man before he’d settled down. All that talk about his mom actually reminded him of Calvin for a moment, because in all honesty…he and Valentine’s mom would have something in common after he defeated him. They both would probably make excuses for it. He could see the crying loser now, bemoaning how he wasn’t ready! How he wasn’t motivated! This brings a smile to the face of Johnny Valentine.
“So…how did you know dad?”
The woman’s shoulders slump. She stands and turns to Valentine, and with her right hand reaches up and sandy blond curls spill from beneath the hat, and abruptly Valentine’s smile vanishes. The woman is considerably younger than he was expecting, full lips, soft cheeks a prominent nose just like dad’s…and eyes just like his own. A snarl quickly captures his features as he cannot grasp the audacity, the sheer unmitigated gall she has to show…
“Jonathan, is that anyway to look upon your mother?”
