The Hand That Held My Heart

A short story I wrote in my school's Writer's Guild.

Eunice was strolling as per usual, with her faithful granddaughter. They were at the mall. Every time her granddaughter would walk into a store, she would either follow her into the foreign place, or simply sit on a bench that always seemed to appear outside the shop, like invitational miracles. And so, this time, she sat, with her ageing back and dependant cane in hand, as her granddaughter happily walked in, observing the shows on sale. Eunice looked around her, observing every single young life that she once embodied, missing every single faded and dimmed memory that she once held so dearly. Where was she now?

Eunice was old, at 93 years of age and still going, and she couldn't ever deny it now, as denying would make her last push through life worth nothing. She always wondered why her granddaughter always took her on these trips. Questions liked to haunt her mind sometimes, and selflessly, she wanted to let go.

A shelf collapsed in the store, grabbing the attention of Eunice and everyone nearby. It turned out there was a fight in the store between some lustful observer and the husband of woman he was observing. Eunice's granddaughter ran out immediately, and took her grandmother with her.

Clearly, it was out of care, but Eunice still inevitably wondered why she was still here, with someone more than half her age. 'She can't be with me. I can't matter to her anymore,' she was thinking.

Depression seemed to enter with old age. Turmoil and trial seemed to fall in love with her. As Eunice and her beloved granddaughter were running through the sudden crowd of people who gathered around the store, she remembered her hands. They were being held onto so tightly by her granddaughter, and every second of that tightness seemed to creep up on her. She so desperately wanted to let go, to just get lost in a place that she didn't belong in, to let her granddaughter live without such a burden like herself. But her granddaughter persisted, and held on ever so tight. So tight, like how her heart was tugged. She couldn't ever, ever let go, no matter if she tried desperately or not. She was only loved. And there was nothing Eunice could do to stop that from ever going.

-Simon