Becoming Okay
By Lu-Man
If you'd rather listen to me read the story than read it yourself, check out my youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMrGuWtS5ck

The dark grey skies matched the dark grey stone on the ground. The words etched on it was simple. It held only the name of the deceased, Clarice Canine, and the date of birth and death. She was only twenty-two years old on the day of her tragic death. Somehow the green grass around it gave the grave a sense of regalness that Clarice never felt or desired in life, as if God she was honoring for her sacrifice.

"You know, I keep expecting the door to open," Derek said to the stone, his ears folded back, tail tucked down. A simple collared shirt hung on him that was nearly two sizes two big. "It's as if I should look to the door and see you there, coming inside. Still smiling just as big, humming that simple tune you used to hum all the time."

He reached down and rubbed a palm on the grass, dark brown fur standing in stark contrast to the velvety green of the nicely manicured lawn of the cemetery. "Heh, look at me, still trying to reach down and touch your hand like I always did when we spoke." His voice caught, as if the laughter held there for just a moment before it turned to sorrow.

"I can see you down there, reaching up somehow. I know when it happened. When you did what you did, you told me not to cry or worry. You kept saying that. 'Live in joy and happiness for both of us,' you told me." No matter how hard he tried, he kept seeing the image in his brain. The bloody bumper. The driver, a cervine who had obviously way too much to drink and no recognition that he wasn't even on the road anymore. That his truck was no longer moving.

His fiance' lay almost where he was standing just a moment ago. He would live, simply because she saw it first. Because she was looking at the street when he was looking into the store window, talking about adopting a pet. Her sacrifice so he might live.

A rain drop landed on the back of his hand-paw. A second one landed close to the first. Thick, fat and heavy, like the tears he had shed so many times before over the past few weeks in this very spot. The only one he had ever loved, ever could love it felt, taken so quickly for such a senseless thing as a last call and a drunk driver.

The rain came like a sheet of living water, embracing the small city and the mourning canine within it. Each cold drop felt like a reminder. A reminder when he and her showered together in the house for the first time. The thunder that soon followed was a signal of what happened next: when the water heater gave out in a spectacular fashion and rocketed its way through the roof and onto the lawn.

He leaned back, lifting his muzzle to the sky. His ears pinned to his head in sorrow. Each tear he felt mixed with the cold water of the rain. Pieces of his sorrow washing away in the dark storm. Another memory came: Clarice sitting by the window, watching the storm pass over their small house. "I hate the rain," he grumbled as he walked over to her. She looked up at him, and gave him a smile, a simple tip of her ear before turning back to the drama of the storm.

"I love it," she replied.

"I never understood why. How could anyone like weather like this," He looked down at his fiance'. A clap of thunder rang through the house as if to emphasize his point.

"Because, silly" she said as she watched the fat raindrops crash into the street, "it's soothing. It's cleansing. The rain washes away the trash and muck of the world and gives it a fresh start. To me it always felt like God saying he just forgives everyone, we can all start with a clean slate."

"Plus," he said with a wry grin on his ears and lip, "you don't have to wash the cars."

She chuckled, "Yeah, he's doing it for me right now."

"I still prefer a sunny day," The canine said, looking out at the street.

Usually, the memory stopped there. But as the canine sat in the grass and growing mud puddle around him, looking upward at the storm, it continued. Now Clarice looked upward at him, with a warm smile and a gentle wag of comfort. "If I go before you," she said, touching his hand-paw in that comforting way they both liked so much, "I want you to look for me in the rain. That's how you'll know that wherever I am, I'm okay. I want you to be okay, too. Can you do that?"

A final tear fell from his face. "Yes," he whimpered, looking upward at the sky. A bolt of lightening shot across it briefly. "You're honestly okay, up there." He said again, looking down at the grave. "And...I think finally I will be too."

A clap of thunder rung out, louder this time, cracking through him and around him all at once. "If, I get to my car before I get electrocuted that is." The water continued to wash over him. Now it finally felt cold, almost freezing. But inside he felt different. Where the cold touch of death and mourning once was, the warm embrace of healing remained. He looked down at the gravestone of his fiance' one more time. "You're honestly okay," He said. His eyes were red from crying, but now only raindrops fell from his cheeks, not tears. "and now, I will be too. I promise. I'll live and be happy for the both of us."