Merle Dixon was much of a man, he had once been an alcoholic and drug addict but much had changed since he had met Hershel Greene the man offered him a job working on his farm when no one else would even look at him for a job. He was walking back to his little travel trailer on the back half of the hundred acres when he saw a light on in the broken window of the old trailer house that set on the last half of the property and inside he saw the youngest Greene daughter, Beth. He knew that she had moved back recently. He stopped and picked a wild rose and walked up to the window. Hey darlin . How you doin tonight? He asked as he handed her the rose through the broken glass. She accepted it with a smile and invited him in.
Merle entered the trailer and went back to the bedroom where she was at. She was gorgeous you could tell from her face that she had been through a helluva a lot in her young years. She had long blonde hair, big green eyes, a small up turned nose and cute pouty little lips. He found out that she was only twenty four. They set up all night talking and laughing. There was a sadness about the young girl.
Soon a relationship blossomed between the two and Hershel prayed that Merle could reach his youngest. She was the apple of his eye. One day they decided to go for a walk, they went down by the creek and through the hollow to a beautiful meadow that on her daddy s land, Merle carrying her guitar as they went. When they got there they sat down and Beth began to play and sing old country songs to him. She had the voice of an angel and Merle could listen to her play for hours. She sang To Touch the Green, Green Grass of home and cried as she sang it. Merle knew she was battling her addiction to Crystal Meth and it broke him. He was trying to help her get sober. He wanted the put a ring on her finger but he didn t have the money and he never would have enough to change her world. If he could he would take her away from all the pain and sorrow of her life. She worked at the Time Out a strip joint off of interstate 155 dancing for her dollars and feeding her addiction. Beth wanted to be a singer but she just couldn t catch her break so she stripped and did the devil s drug. He was in love with her but he knew that she would always sleep with other men. She prostituted her self for drugs and it broke apart of him for her.
Months wore one and the effects of the drug began to take his precious Beth from him. Her once long silky beautiful hair had started turning yellow, her eyes know constantly had a haunted look about them and a shallowness to them and her face had began to line and look skeletal. But the little angel still held his heart know instead of making love like they once did he d hold her as she cried as the depression took over. When she would fall asleep Merle would cry silent tears for her. He knew the drug was going to take her away once and and he just prayed it was later but he knew with each hit off the pipe, each needle prick that it was taking years from her young and precious life and he didn t know how many she had left.
Merle was asleep when his phone rang at two thirty in the morning. He looked on the screen and the caller I.D. showed that it was Hershel calling. His stomach filled with dread as he answered the phone. Son you need to get to the E.R. Beth as overdosed and we don t know how much longer were gonna have her. Tears began to fall as Merle rushed around to get dressed and find he his keys. He jumped on his Harley and began to tear out for the hospital. Once he got there and was let into the room with her he began to sob. She was just laying there is quite and she looked so small he knew that she weighed less than a hundred pounds now; nothing but a living skeleton. He walked over to her beside and grabbed her hand. She smiled and then laughed a little as she drew her last breath. Merle collapsed and Hershel laid his hand on the man that he had came to love as family. He had spent the last year trying to convince her to go to rehab all the while battling with now using. His sobriety was not something he was going to lose.
The sky was gray as the cold hard rain fell as Beth Greene s family stood in the cemetery as Hershel proceeded his own daughter s funeral. He cried as he read Psalms 23:4. Merle just stood there frozen as her older brother and sister cried. She was being laid to rest next to her mother she was only twenty five. She was too young to go. Merle s brother Daryl and his wife Carol had came to the funeral to show their support for him but nothing reached him accepted for the cold of the rain as it soaked him to the bone. As they lowered her into the ground something in him broke and the tears flowed as he walked forward and tossed a wild red rose on her casket. Everyone had left as they covered her up all but one person Merle stayed.
That night he made his walk past her trailer and looked into the broken window and the light was off.