Summer Smiles by Cynus

[FreeThinker]

Every once in a while, I come across a story that truly moves me and this is one. Cynus reminds us what it was like to be a lonely fourteen year-old who sees a smile and falls in love. He accurately describes the feelings of looking forward to the freedom of summer, overcoming your fears. Summer is more than just a season. I strongly recommend this sweet story.

http://www.awesomedude.com/Cynus/summer-smiles/summer-smiles.htm

[The Pecman]

It's a very sentimental story... but ya know, I like sentimental.

[Cole Parker]

Very well done. You've got a lot of talent, Samuel.

C

[Chris James]

Yes, I like sentimental, too.

There is a cemetery down in the middle of town. My grandmother is buried there and I take my mother there to visit. That is a sentimental occasion for her but I find myself drawn towards two headstones that sit side by side not to far off the walkway. I rarely approach but I know they are there and the symbolism of those two stones speaks volumes to my sense of emotion.

Two boys, age twelve, were killed on the train tracks several decades ago, and not too far from where they now lie. I won't use last names but Steven was white and James was black, the best of friends in life...and now together in death. Friendship is where love starts although I doubt if they were anything but bright and curious boys. My thoughts as I see those stones is sentimental, sad, and yet I am ever curious about the lives of these boys...lives that I will never know.

My thanks to Cynus for another glimpse at the meaning of friendship.

[Jeff Ellis]

I agree with what has been said by all of you. This is beautifully crafted and says something very meaningful to me too.

SPOILER ALERT

I dont intend to have a headstone... they tie the living to the dead, but they do encapsulate loss.

I think of two in particular.

The first was when we were exploring graveyards in my father's village... genealogy you know.

I was excited because I had found the headstone for the doctor who saved my life at age two. But, I had no-one to tell except a lady who was washing a nice, fairly modern headstone.... We chatted and I noticed the inscription, to a ten year old boy some ten years earlier. For ten years she had been working her way through her loss. What can you say?

The other is in a local cemetery, to a son who died age 19 in 1916... In memory of, duty done. The wording implies no body, that was presumably lost in the mud of Flanders. The second inscription on the stone is to "His mother..." her date of death is 19 years earlier than his. The thought of that father/husband.

So that's my take on things, and why I don't want a headstone... but that's not my choice anyway. It's the living who decide that sort of thing, the dead have already done their bit.

[Cynus]

Thank you for the compliments everyone. I'm glad that you all enjoyed it. It was a fun piece to write, and it came out quite smoothly. I think this was one of those stories for me that begged to be written, so when I finally sat down to do so it practically wrote itself.

Again, thank you.

[The Pecman]

That is a sentimental occasion for her but I find myself drawn towards two headstones that sit side by side not to far off the walkway. I rarely approach but I know they are there and the symbolism of those two stones speaks volumes to my sense of emotion.

Two boys, age twelve, were killed on the train tracks several decades ago, and not too far from where they now lie. I won't use last names but Steven was white and James was black, the best of friends in life...and now together in death.

That's an idea for a story if I ever heard one!