Grandma's Final Gift

Our Grandma Doris passed a week ago, and I was tasked with the unenviable chore of clearing out her belongings. I rummaged through the closet in her apartment, and found a tattered old photo album. I opened it.

Of all the items I found, pictures were the most difficult as an ocean of memories flooded back to me. There I was as a little boy playing ‘Uno’ with her. Another was of her wagging her finger at the six-foot neighbor boy after he knocked over her trashcans. At Thanksgiving, she stood like a giant at the head of the table poised to say grace. Still another showed her smiling in her favorite chair. She was a feisty woman yet full of compassion.

“I will miss you, Grandma,” I whispered in the hushed room, and I touched her smiling face. Tears ballooned in my eyes, but I held them back. Be strong. I could hear her say.

My sister and I decided that selling her stuff might make a dent in the medical bills. Given what I’d packed so far, a very small dent. I guess we’d just make payments on that and her funeral. I sighed.

I turned another page, and there she stood with my grandpa. Then I noticed the beautiful necklace she wore. I wonder if that’s what she meant? I thought she said ambulance. “Use the ambulance in the box,” she said when my sister and I were discussing her bills. We figured the drugs were to blame.

I hurried to her jewelry box. Inside were dozens of cheap knockoffs – rings, necklaces, and earrings. But when I removed them, a false bottom was revealed. I pulled it out. There – glinting and sparkling in the sunlight streaming from the window – was an emerald amulet.

“Thanks Grandma.”

299 Words
Flash Story Contest using amulet, giant, ocean