Gunk remembers
For a long while, Gunk had not been around. She was out having adventures. When she showed up again, she was more than happy to trade chocolate cookies for tales of where she had been.
This morning, just like the days before, Gunk came into the kitchen to tell more tales and eat more cookies.
She jumped up on the table and looked at me with some concern.
“Why are you crying?” she asked. I told her I had just received the news that a dear friend of mine had died.
“But why are you crying?” she asked again. “You don’t cry when other things die. Like this cookie.” she said, as she shoved a whole cookie into her mouth. “Or when that hedgehog was run over by the nice man’s blue van.” she continued, sounding muffled, with her mouth full.
I tried to explain it to her.
But Gunk just couldn’t grasp the difference between the death of a cookie, the death of an animal, and the death of a dear friend.
To her, they all appeared to be sort-of the same. And none merited mourning, somehow. I asked her if she had ever lost someone she loved.
I had to explain that to her too, as she thought I was asking her if she had ever misplaced someone she loved. After the confusion was cleared up, she said: “Of course people I love have died. The last one was my Gran. Seeing how you don’t count the hedgehog. But I’d rather remember how Gran lived than how she died. Her death was boring. She just sort of went. But her life! It was amazing! I have loads more memories of that!”
She looked at me, wrinkling her brow.
“She may be dead” Gunk said thoughtfully, “but that doesn’t mean she’s gone. Don’t you remember all sorts of things about your friend?”
I had to admit that I did. Gunk asked me to tell her. When I did, she kept asking for more.
By the time I had to get up to turn on the lights in the kitchen, because it was getting dark outside, I still felt a bit sad… But most of all, I felt glad for all the fond memories I had. And all of the adventures we’d shared.
Even if we wouldn’t be able to have new adventures any more.
Gunk took my moment of reflection as a sign that we were done for the day. As she got up to leave, I asked her if she would be back in the morning. There were still loads of adventures she had to tell me about.
She nodded solemnly as confirmation she would, indeed, be back.
Just before jumping of the table and heading for the cat-flap, she told me:
“Just because you did all of the story talking today, don’t think that you get all the cookies!”
And with that, she was gone.
All stories in this repository are created by Ben & Pimmie
Peachey/Schoorl
and licensed under a Creative Commons
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