Silently Watching

by Beth Doughty

"Miserable old man, even he deserves a prayer." The dirt flew from her frail hand and crashed across his casket. We all looked down silently at the hole in the ground while quietly contemplating my grandmother’s stoic grief. Decades before, she’d been taken by this budding opera singer, this con man - a handsome tenor with his dark hair and clear green eyes; the pride of Tuscaloosa. He abandoned the family, leaving her to raise five kids on her meager salary, to pursue new dreams, new women, new cons only to return at 86. He called my father, “son, it’s time I come home,” and here he lay, and here we all stood silently... watching my grandmother.

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Beth Doughty is a Systems Analyst who dabbles at being a humorist on her website The Big Blue Mess. (She doesn't let reality stand in her way, and she's okay with being funny only in her own mind.) When she grows up, she’d like to be able to say she's a writer.