Curse of the Loveless Mind
© Jaimey Perham 02/13/2010
Robert’s restless mind raced with unwanted random thoughts in the fall of 1995. His old tired bones creaked and cracked upon his death bed in the sterile hospital room. Doctors said he was dead 6 months ago!
Family and friends made peace with the bearded grey haired elder war veteran. But, he continued to hang on to what little life the cancer didn’t already eat away.
Robert hands trembling as he reached for the foam cup filled with water on the night table. The nice kind nurse on hand stepped in and helped Robert take a sip of water. The wet cold water moistened his mouth, but his heart was still frozen dry!
Then in the doorway stood a stranger lady to others in room with long blond hair and deep green eyes
Robert turned his head, and dropped the foam cup of water on his white cloth sheets. The dying man then uttered his first word in months,
“Tanya!”
The young beauty pinched her shirt on her right shoulder, and slowly walked to the man’s bed.
The old man sat up from his bed staring only at the queen as family and friends looked in puzzlement.
The two now faced each other, and the room was so silent you could hear the crickets outside. The young lady placed her soft right hand on the old man’s chest right over his heart. Then like the wind the lady stranger was gone, and in all the commotion I didn’t realize Grandfather had died.
Years after the funeral I found an old box in the attic of the family home with my grandfather’s name on it. It dated back to World War II when my father was in Holland fighting the mad Hitler and evil Nazi’s. There were medals, patches, a uniform, and a single picture of a young blond Dutch Jewish girl.
What was strange about that photo was the woman looked strangely familiar?
I showed the picture to my older brother and a look of terror and fear swarmed his face.
“Sis, this is the strange woman from the hospital when grandfather died back in 1995!”
I reexamined the photo, and then said, “But it can’t be her?”
“She looks the same age in this photo taken during the war as she did in that hospital room a half century later!”
My brother then turned the photograph over and read my grandfather’s faded hand writing,
“Last photograph of my love Tanya before the Nazi’s shot her dead. Age 25, Year 1945.”
