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Saying Goodbye
Molly Furey
Isobelle Carmody Award
for Creative Writing
Winner
The fireplace lay cold and empty now, her tired eyes rested on the
hearth where she had knelt so many times in front of an open fire.
Her fragile body could no longer carry the earthy smelling wood or
bend to tend the glowing flames. She remembered sitting by this fire,
with a brand new baby resting in her arms rocking back and forth,
back and forth gen-tly in the peaceful warmth. She didn’t want to
leave this house where so many memories had been made. ‘Old age is
cruel, sad and lonely,’ Clara thought to herself. Its most recent
turnover was her realisation, with the gentle encouragement of her
daughter Rosie, that she could no longer live alone. Clara pulled back
the lace curtains, Rosie would be here soon to take her away from this
place. She didn’t want to leave, she wanted to live here until the day
she died, she wanted to have every one of her memories linked back
to this house, she wanted to stay.
She stood up and walked down the small corridor that led to her
bedroom. She stood there in silence staring at the empty walls where
photos had once hung. She remembered the Sunday mornings when
a wide-awake Rosie would come bounding into Clara and her
husband, Fred’s, bedroom and snuggle up in-between them. She
could still hear Rosie’s giggles as Fred playfully tossed the tiny angel
into the air. Now the giggles seemed to echo through the cold, lonely
house. She stood there for a while and then turned and shuffled into
the kitchen and lowered herself slowly into a creaking wooden chair.
She loved the fact that the chairs were all different. She ran her hand
over the worn surface of the old timber table. She remembered the
laughter, the tears, the joy and the heartache that had been shared
around this table. She looked to the end of the table, the place where
Fred had sat at every meal. How she missed him. The five years had
not eased the pain. She missed him every single day. The smell of
warm bread as it was lifted from the stove wafted through her
memory.
Clara stood up and walked towards the back door. She pushed
open the rickety screen door that led to the small back garden where
she and Fred had spent hours every week-end gardening and
planting things in their veggie garden. Fred was extremely proud of
his veggie garden, he never let a carrot be planted out of line or a
tomato plant grow too high, everything was perfect. But these days,
the veggie patch was old and over-grown. Clara couldn’t bend over
anymore to clean it up. She felt that she had let Fred down, it just
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