This is my first story so please don't be brutal when you review. Be honest just not harsh.
My Story
My name is Grace Elizabeth Danes and I was murdered. It has been a year since my death, yet I can still see the impact it has had on my family. My parents have both refused to let the other know how much they are really grieving and their relationship has suffered greatly from it, my parents have begun to sleep in separate bedrooms. My sister has put up a wall around her and refuses to let anyone know how much she has been affected by my death. My brother doesn't truly understand what happened to me, but he sees and feels the differences around him. A house which used to be filled with voices and laughter is now filled with silence and grief. A family which used holidays as an excuse to hold a family reunion and spent the summer going on road trips together is now being torn apart by a horrible tragedy.
The day of my anniversary my family acted as though it were any other day. My mother went to the store after dropping my brother off at daycare, my father went to work, and my sister went to school. At dinner that night no one spoke except for the occasional "please pass the..." to one another. They continued this act until later that night when they were in their separate rooms.
My sister was lying in her bed trying to sleep, but her head was filled with memories of the two of us. After an hour, she quietly slipped out of her bed and down the hall to my room. As she entered she closed the door softly behind her and glanced around the room. My room is just as I had left it that fateful morning one year ago. My bed is hastily made, clothes are strewn on the floor, and my bath towels are still hanging on the back of my door. My sister headed towards my bookcase which is covered in my favorite books and photo albums. As she ran her hands over the titles she stopped at my favorite book, To Kill a Mockingbird. She remembered when I had first read the book and how I could not put it down. She remembered the weeks afterwards when I had insisted on bringing a copy everywhere with me. She continued onto the shelf of photo albums and took down the one marked "Forever Sisters." She took the album and headed back to her room where she spent the rest of the night curled up on her bed going through it.
After dinner, my mother walked into her bedroom where she immediately went into the bathroom and began to run a bath for herself. Only when the tub was full and she had submersed herself into the soothing warm water did she finally let her mind relax. While lying there the events and emotions of the past year filled every fiber of her being and she did something my mother hadn't allowed herself to do since my funeral. She cried. My mother sat in the bathtub crying until she could cry no more and the water had gone cold long before. As she drifted off to sleep that night, my mother felt a calming sensation fall over her and she knew that everything would be alright.
My father had grown accustomed to sleeping in the spare bedroom, but before he would fall asleep he would always light a candle in the window to show that he still believed I would come home to him. This particular night my father had a hard time sleeping so he went to sit in the chair next to the window. As he stared out the window, my father's mind began to clear and he thought of the past year. He thought of when he first realized I was late coming home from school, when he received the call from the police asking him to identify my body, and the investigation of my murder. He remembered the stares of sympathy he received from people on the street. He saw my picture from the newspaper in his mind. He thought of my funeral, my memorial service at school, and all the cards, flowers, and calls from friends and families. As he sat there, my father became overwhelmed with a feeling of sadness so great it knocked the breath out of him. Images of me at different times of my life flashed through his mind. As he sobbed by the window, my father slowly began to loosen his grip on the idea of me returning home. My father slowly came to realize that he was able to move on from my death without completely forgetting me. As my father lay down to sleep that night, in a household that would soon begin to slowly repair itself, a soft breeze came threw the open window and blew the candle out.