***End of Last Chapter***
The room, once so comprehensible and clear, became topsy-turvy. Jan felt first nauseous, as though on a galleon at sea. Then, strangely enough, she felt great – she was flying! Wow, this feels great! Nothing matters anymore, I'm free! Jan never saw her distraught mother catching her fallen daughter and screaming desperately for help. All she saw was the room becoming dimmer, dimmer. Dark.
Marcia kneeled beside a flat, rectangular, black granite headstone. Etched in gold lettering were the words "Beloved sister and daughter." Seventeen years had passed since that awful day her mother had called from the hospital.
"Jan didn't make it." The words still echoed in her head, causing a dull pain to sink in to her stomach. She swallowed in a failed attempt to release the lump in her throat. She placed a bouquet of pansies next to the stone and brushed a few bits of dirt off it with her hand.
Her daughter, a pale, thin girl of five years knelt beside her, her straight blond hair flowing down over her shoulders and all the way down to her lower back. She, too, placed a bouquet of violet, pink, and yellow pansies next to the stone, and smiled at her mother.
"Do you think she sees them, mommy?"
"I sure hope so, love."
A thin, teenaged angel stood behind the two of them, one hand on each of their shoulders. She whispered, "I do," but her words were lost to the wind.
The little girl shivered a little, and then stood up.
"It's cold, mommy. Can we go home now?"
"Yes, Jan. Let's go home."