Snapshot

Grandma Ruth wore a pink coral necklace from The Great Reefs, and a tattoo on her forearm from elsewhere. Gray clouds hung in crimson-painted skies over gray waters of the ocean. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Terry, her grandson, said.
 

“Oh, I have,” she wheezed, “even before you were born.” Her hands cradled a snapshot of her feeding him as an infant.
 

“It’s good to see you again. We’ve got some catching up to do.”
 

“Don’t you go feeling sorry for me,” she said.
 

She leaned her head back to see the overhead sky, clearing from the passing storm. Distant waves crashed. Water frothed and spread across the shoreline, until receding, and the cycle repeated itself to rhythms of the earth and moon. “Your grandpa was in the Merchant Marines,” she said.
 

Terry nodded. “Grandpa often left you behind.”
 

“He said that a ship was no place for a woman like me.” She hacked a cough and nodded. “But I travelled a little after he passed away.”
 

Terry looked into her clouded eyes, eyes he was sure had seen more life than he could imagine. She heaved one more breath, and her head drooped. A wind gust took the snapshot skyward. For a moment, he smiled, realizing she could have been anywhere, but had saved the last moment for him.