An Inheritance

Chapter 27

For the remainder of Wednesday and all day Thursday, Lauren tried to find her normal routine again by going through more of her grandmother’s things and attending to the green house plants. 

She went to a neighborhood garden center and talked to one of the owners about raising the backyard garden beds to help drainage.  Bob Simon had known her grandmother and had helped design the green house, so he knew her garden.  He found the original plot diagram and they went through some books to determine what would be needed.

By the time Lauren left, she had signed-off on the changes needed and had decided on which fall vegetables she’d plant.  Lauren felt that since she’d already taken the semester off from school, she might as well spend that time here.  She really loved spending time with the plants and the garden did need to be upgraded.  Plenty of time to get back home.  

Of course, every spare second was spent thinking of everything she had learned about her family and herself.  Her mind seemed to link one ‘coincidental’ incident to the next throughout her life, where her abilities, her gifts, had played a significant part in what she had done or hadn’t done.  What seemed to be ‘luck’ or ‘good sense’ or whatever, at the time, Lauren could now recognize as being part of these talents.  She may have learned to suppress the knowledge that they were there, but she had always had the sense to heed her instincts.

So when she woke on Friday and felt peaceful and calm, she realized her dreams had been nothing but gentle, peaceful episodes depicting only the good times of her life and events she didn’t recognize she could only assume were things yet to come.  She stretched and reached out to Abby who was still nestled deep in her pillow.    

“I feel really good today, why don’t I make a good breakfast; how does eggs, bacon and toast sound?  Then after our visit to the green house, would you like to check out the cemetery again?  I think it’s going to be a beautiful day and there are still some crypts we haven’t plotted.”

Abby responded by scooting over the foot between them and rubbing her face along Lauren’s arm.  She was in complete agreement.  They spent a few more minutes cuddling and then began their day.   

After breakfast and checking on the green house, Lauren and Abby went down the path to visit the cemetery.  Whichever one of the Arsenault’s was taking care of the plots had done a great job in keeping the vegetation away from the crypts and only a certain amount of caution was needed in walking around them to find the names of the residents.  She made a note to call on this family and thank them for all they have done.  One of them must have been here recently because a new wreath had been placed in front of her grandmother’s crypt, along with a few bouquets at the doors of a few others. 

She jotted down some names as she made her rounds and then sat on the stone bench to sketch some additional crypts on the graph paper she had started previously.  She stopped several times and closed her eyes; even though humid, there was a gentle breeze and the gently rustling leaves from the trees seemed to be whispering.  If she listened hard enough, she felt she really could hear her ancestors talk to her through the trees. 

Faint images of her family, long gone, floated through her mind.  She focused on the pictures of the Almas on their twelfth birthdays.  They were all here, all still part of the land and as she now knew, were a part of her.  How had each of them found their own path?  Had any thought that what they had wasn’t a gift, but a burden?  Had any rebelled like her mother or did they all feel that this was what they had to do, or what they wanted to do?  Maybe none of them had a choice.