The Gift
I was sitting in my home, on my brother's favorite chair, watching spring come to an end as the warm blazing summer began to take its place. The days got longer and the sun got hotter. Summer was Ludwig's favorite time of the year. He would love to swim in the lake the next town over, and we would stay out late at night on the roof of my car, and just talk. Talk about life, cars. You name it, we contemplated it. He was my best friend. He was my little brother. When he turned eighteen, he left to go fight in the army. It was so hard being away from my brother, not knowing if he was ok. But the hardest thing of all was not being there with him to tell him everything would be ok. He was killed inAfghanistanin a sudden roadside bombing.
"Gilbert? How long have you just been sitting there? That's not healthy you know."
I turned and there she was, Liz. My closet childhood friend. She looked at me jokingly, but I saw a sadness somewhere deep in her beautiful green eyes.
"Well, I see you let yourself in? Don't you ever knock? You don't know what the awesome me could be doing I might be busy." I scoffed. Breaking my trance, I turned away from the window I had been staring out.
"You? Busy? Wow Imso, give me a break. Ha ha! 'The awesome me?' Hardly!" She shot back. We were always like this, Liz and I. And I wouldn't have it any other way. She had come along, I'd say something. She would tease me playfully, and we would go back and forth until we were both laughing until we had tears welling in our eyes. Good times.
But this time was different. She stopped laughing at me and put on her, 'I'm concerned about you, Gilbert Bielschmit look'. I hate that look. I like her better when she smiles. She's so beautiful when she smiles.
Liz had a different agenda today. No more joking around. She walked over to the chair I was in, and put a hand on my shoulder. Her hand was soft, and full of compassion and comfort. I could feel it as it spread from her hand to my shoulder and then to my heart. I looked up at her face to see her eyes had softened. She gave a small smile of encouragement. At that moment, she could do no wrong. That smile had to have been the most powerful, and beautiful smile I had ever seen, all at the same time.
"Hey, it's going to be alright." She told me, her voice matching the softness in her eyes.
"You'll get through this. He's in a better place. I know that you miss Ludwig, but you can't just sit around waiting to feel better. Because it won't happen. "What would he say if he saw you in this sorry state?" She pressed. She made a good point, Ludwig would be really upset. If he saw me just sitting around, wasting away grieving over him he would stomp his foot, and give me his determined glare. Then he would say something like, "How could you just sit around and watch life go bye? I'm just dead! The world isn't ending, Gilbert. I thought you were more awesome that this."
He would be right. I am too awesome to just sit around. I stood up. "What sorry state? I'm awesome! How could you say that about me? Of all the people – sheessh!" I exclaimed, adding a bit of sarcasm.
Just like that, our conversation went back to normal, and I couldn't help but feel the warm fuzziness occurring in my stomach.
Well alright then, Mr. 'King of Awesome', let's go somewhere, since you are fine." Liz suggested boldly. She grabbed my hand and began to drag me to the door as I stumbled around hurrying to keep up with her.
"Wait, Liz! I can't." I objected, squirming my hand out of her grasp. "Why not Gilbert?" she asked, looking at me suspiciously.
"It's too light out, I'm out of sun block, and its still daytime. I'll fry out there!" I explained. "Hey, do you even know what time it is? You must've been staring out of that window longer then I had guessed." She said. I just looked at her blankly. Did I really not know what time it was? How long had I really been thing about Ludwig? I felt like my grief had been tearing me from reality. No, I knew. The only way to solve this problem was to stop sitting around and being sad about my brother's death.
"It's like, eight o'clock Gill. The sun will be setting soon. It will be dark by the time we get to where I'm taking you." She told me, as if she read my mind.
"Where are we going?" I asked clearly confused.
"Can't tell you. It's a secret." She told me to my displeasure. She threw me a sly smirk. I rolled my eyes a bit too overdramatically in response causing Liz to laugh. Which caused me to smile.
Liz had placed a bandana over my eyes. She took my hand and led me to her car while I tried to hide my obvious blush. I hoped she hadn't seen because I'm too awesome to blush. But it's kind of hard to hide your blush when you're albino.
We rode together in silence, but it wasn't awkward. We felt a kind of contentment just sitting in each other's company. Even though I could see her I could feel her presence.
After a few minutes I rolled down my window. I liked to feel the wind on my face. After a while, I began to smell a familiar scent in the air that I couldn't quite put my finger on. For some reason, it reminded me greatly of my brother.
Finally, the car came to a stop, and I heard the faint rustling of tree leaves in the wind, and the sound of water being pushed and pulled in the breeze. It smelled like fresh air, the scent I had picked up on, on the way here. Wherever here was.
Liz's car door opened and closed and footsteps could be heard as she came around to the passenger side to help me out.
Again, she took my hand, and led me to, yet another, unknown location. More footsteps could be heard as they made their way over to me.
Liz removed my blindfold, and I saw all of my friends. They were all standing around me. Francis, Antonio, and Roderick, were all smiling. I looked around, and memories came flooding into me.
I was at our favorite place, The Lake. Ludwig and I loved it here. I was under the big oak tree I would use to shade me from the sun. This was our special place.
I looked over to my friends, and gave them al whole hearted smile.
"Guys, what is this? What's going on?" I mused.
"We know you've been going through a really hard time, but your depression has gotten out of hand. You need to get out and live life. Sitting around won't do anything." Francis answered.
"As we all know, summer is approaching and this is the hardest time for Albinos, but we may have a solution." Toni added.
Just then Liz laid something in my hands. I looked down to see it was a shirt, but not just any shirt. It was made of an odd fabric that I was unfamiliar with. Then I held us the shirt for a better look. What I saw blew me away, and brought tears to my eyes. Even though I wouldn't let them fall.
The shirt read "Proud to be Awesome" and on the back was what got me emotional. It read "In Memory of Bielschmit, Ludwig 1991-2011 A Loving Brother, Friend, and Fellow Solider. R.I.P."
I looked to my friends, speechless. I didn't know what to say. Luckily, Liz piped up for me. "It's a lightweight sun-shirt; it will protect you from the sun while you're out and about. That will enable you to get out and do things to keep yourself occupied and keep your mind off your brother."
That last statement kind of shocked and angered me. "Ludwig was too awesome to forget! How can you say something like that? Nothing could make me forget about my baby brother! No! If I were to do anything, it would be in memory of him. He died so young!" A tear escaped from my eye.
Liz came and embraced me. She put her hand on my back comfortingly.
"Well then Gill, why don't you live for him?" She suggested. Then it struck me. She was right. That was an amazing idea!
"Liz, you are a genius! I definitely will! Thank you all so much!" Then I pulled them all into a tight group hug.
At that moment I vowed to live like my brother would want me to. He would always be with me, even when I wasn't wearing my new shirt.
We spent hours just having fun and joking around as a group again. It had been weeks since I had seen them all together and it was fun. I had missed spending time with them while grieving over Ludwig.
After we all calmed down, I saw Liz standing ankle deep in the lake, just staring at the moon's reflection in the water. I decided to make my move.
My heart pounded as I made my way over to her. She turned to face me as I stepped into the water and moved next to her. Our eyes met and I made a funny face to make her laugh, then I bent down to hug her.
"Liz, thank you. You don't know how much this means to me… How much you mean to me." I whispered into her ear.
"Oh, but I do, Mr. 'Blush-every-time-we-make-physical-contact'. You're so corny, Gilbert. But guess what?" She interrupted. I was taken aback at what she had said, and she called me 'corny.' So not awesome, but I went along.
"What? You finally got a life?" I joked. "No! I mean, HEY! What do you mean finally?"
"Ha! I'm just kidding; you should've seen your face though!" I replied.
"I Love you too, Gill" she told me suddenly. My heart stopped.
"Hey! I was going to get to that! Jeez, Liz" I told her sarcastically. She smiled knowingly at me and replied, "Well then, Say it already."
"Fine. Challenge accepted," I stated proudly. Liz looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to say those three words. "Well you see it's like this. Umm, I loved you, since we were young and stuff." I told her sheepishly.
"Took you long enough." She sighed. She smirked at me, and bending down, she brought water up in her hand and splashed me in the face.
"Oh! Ok then! I see how it is! Well it is on now!" I shouted as I wiped the water out of my eyes. I then bent down and splashed her back as hard as I could manage. I looked back up at her and she was soaked and never looked so beautiful.
"Oh bring it on Romeo!" She mocked. "You know I will."
We splashed and mocked each other until dawn, and when the sun did come up Liz and I took a break to watch the sunlight reflect off the water on the lake, hand-in-hand. In the water that morning, I swear I saw my brother, for a split second, and he was smiling.