This story was published on a forum I used to be a member of. A fantasy tale with a true ingredient. I wrote this a couple of years ago. Meanwhile, my grandmother has passed away, almost exactly 50 years after my grandfather.

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I never knew my maternal grandfather. He died when my mother was fifteen. His death was preceeded by a raging disease, tearing apart his body within only a short period of time.

My mother hardly ever tells me about him. When she does I see her tears shimmer behind her blue eyes, but never appearing on her face. Only in those moments I can see she still mourns him at a sacred shrine, hidden in her heart.

It must have been hard for her. When she was fifteen, she had to become an adult. She had to take care of her mother, and her two siblings, a brother and a sister, both younger. She set herself free of this task when she was 22, as then she married my six year older father.

When my grandfather died, I think my grandmother died too, in her heart. Not letting go of her grief made my grandmother into an often cold, selfish woman, her warm heart hidden behind a thick wall of grief. She has his picture on her wall. Her eyes, now half blind, can hardly see him now.That does not matter, she knows he is there.

My grandmother never remarried. She once told me, during spring cleaning, that the love was too great between them. I believe this in the same way I believe she was afraid to ever love again. I always felt she was afraid to hurt his feelings if she would find another man.

So she stayed hidden in her own widow world.

-~-~-~-~-~-

I only have seen my grandfather in this one portrait picture on my grandmothers wall, and somewhere in our living room when I grew up. In this picture you see a man in his thirties. He has a tall face, framed on the top and sides with dark wavy hair. He has a half smile on his face, open and and reserved at the same time. There is a light in his eyes that still shines, a reflection of his star, way above in the sky.

When I see his picture, I can see my brother in him, the one who -is that really a coincidence?- also shares his name.

I would have loved to grow up with him at my side.

I would put my -six year old self's- hand in his, and show him my world. I know, deep down inside, that he would have been the only one to really understand what I was seeing in my world. His eyes tell me that.

And sometimes, when my eyes are fixed on the painting his sister made of the picture, I see him wink at me through the veil between worlds, as if to say: I am here, don't you worry now.

And I grab his outstretched hand.