Prompt 5 – Point of View
Playing Cinderella
Riding her first bike
Bouncing on the bed and looking for a pillow fight
Running through the sprinkler with a big grin on her face
Dancing with her dad, looking up at him
Stealing Cinderella, Chuck Wicks
oOOOo
For Dan, Rachel was both daughter and companion in a plethora of joined hobbies, the first princess of his heart, the one who ran to him with her first gold-star studded report card in grade school, and the sum all the questions he never got to ask- let alone get answers to.
Naomi remembers her eldest as a newborn sleeping through the night for the first time who was suddenly (and far too soon) old enough to first run before she crawled, and then wore her familiar face as a mask when she was barely old enough to be called woman before she gave up her chance to legally ever be one.
To another, Rachel is the illusion she will always be chasing, two years older and a million twisted steps and turns ahead; some nights Jordan has nightmares that she will never again see anything else of her older sister but her turned back.
Sara remembers her in her absences the most years later; the succession of birthdays that go uncelebrated but are marked by tears and silence, the fourth chair at the kitchen table in the new house that is never filled, the hugs she wants after personal triumphs but there are no longer arms to give, and the beautifully carved headstone at the memorial that her sister doesn't rest under.
Rachel is perpetually with them, but only in how they choose to remember her.