“Mmm. She. She was.” Jack said, reaching out and touched the frame, doing his best not to have his voice or hand shake. But instead he looked to Katleynn. “…d-do you want to go meet her? I. I mean… not meet but… ugh. Just. Just follow me?” he asks, as he moves from the room and makes his way through to the backdoor of the house.
Katelynn followed after him, giving one last glance at the photograph before hurrying to stay close to his back, wondering if they were going to where she was buried.
She reached for his hand, squeezing it gently to offer him support, to show him it was okay and she was here.
He held her hand as they walked outside. The snow was just beginning to gently fall, but not enough to make seeing hard to do. Jack led her out past the vegetable garden, down through a gate, into another field, towards a collection of trees whose leaves and branches were thick with snow.
“We didn’t bury her.” Jack explains as they stop in front of the trees. He knees, and begins working some snow out of the way of something. A stone? “W-we didn’t want her to be stuck in a box underground. So we had her cremated, a-and my parents had her ashes spread in this field.”
Jack shifts back and gestures to the small engraved stone that stuck out, surrounded by the white snow.
‘In loving memory of Gail Maple
Be like the wind from now until eternity.
Fly free.’
No dates, nothing to give away how old she was, nothing. To some it may seem impersonal but it said all that had to be said.
The man knelt there for a moment, before lifting a hand and roughly wiped at his eyes, trying not to cry again, before standing up and took Katelynn’s hand into his own again and breathed deeply. “It even.. works, you know? Gail. Gale. Gale wind.” he explains weakly.
Jack Maple 