“Crash!” The closet door swung open and it content fell onto him knocking him to the ground. A jewelry box toppled off the shelf and tumbled towards his head. A loud “thud” echoed through the empty room as the box collided with his forehead. Its contents spilled out over him and he fell lip, darkness slipped over his eyes and he passed out.

His name was George Brown, an elderly man of 67, hair gray, face wrinkled, and eyes deep as the ocean run blue, filled to the brim with stories. Recently his mother had died out of old age and too much smoking. For a month she had become deathly sick, skin as green and olives and as frail and a twig. George, her only son had sat by her bed day and night until the moment her soul left her body and life passed away from her. Grief overcame him and for three days he sat in solitude. Both his mother and father had passed on. His father had died in World War II on the ships over to Normandy. A young man, a soldier, and he died of the stomach flu, didn’t get to fight, didn’t get to honor his country, did even get to die a soldiers death of the battlefield.

It had been the funeral earlier that morning and George had now gone to his old childhood home to clear away what remained of his mother's past life and what remained of his. He had just finished clearing out his mothers room when he went to the closet to remove its contents.

Slowly his eyes peeled open and a blinding light quickly made him shut them again. He opened his eyes again and they soon adjusted. Four large wooden walls surrounded him, though they had no roof. It appeared that he was in a wood room with wooden floors, wooden walls that stretched four times the size of him, and an empty roof with only light pouring through. His head pounded and he felt something warm drip down from his head. Blood oozed from a small gash in his forehead, but he soon stopped the bleeding with his hand. His head still pounded and still a little wobbly he tried to remember what could have possibly happened to him. Surrounding him in the wooden room with no roof stood four items of eminence size. There was a huge white feather that reached up to the empty roof, two tarnished gold rings, a piece of velvet fabric, and a large aged piece of paper folded into thirds its edges yellow and the ink on it faded. He ran his hand along the fabric and up the feather. The rings glistened from the light pouring in over them and on the letter read in faint typed letter, The United States Army. As he touched the paper trying to open it his bloody hands stained the paper and seeped deep into the paper. As he unfolded the huge letter he began to read.

SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 1944
Death Notification Letter
Dear Mrs. Brown,

We regret to inform you of your husband’s death. We know it comes as striking news to you, your family and loved ones. How tragic that men, and women alike, must depart from this life at such a young age. Our deepest sympathies and affections are extended to you and your family. We – and I especially – cannot begin to comprehend the grief and sorrow that you’ll experience within the next few days.

In this vocation lives of good men, like your husband, are put on the line to save others, and to better the society in which we must live. This means any small error can be costly. Our team failed to protect your husband, and together we will forever regret it.

We honored and revered your husband – our brother – in life; we wish to bequeath his memory in death. God bless you; may He remain with you and comfort you in your trials and loneliness.

We extend to you our deepest regrets and most sincere apologies.

Respectfully yours,


Bernard Montgomery
Field Marshal



A sudden flood of emotion over to him and he staggered to the floor.

This is the letter that was sent to my mother after my father died at sea. This very slip of paper is what brought so much pain to my mother and left me fatherless, with no man to look up to.

He suddenly he remembered what all other things were. All were from his mother's past, the velvet fabric piece was from the dress she had warned on her very first date with his father, he had seen it in an old photo as a child that his mother had shown him. The feathers was from the day they got engaged when they climbed up to a bluff where the seagulls nest overlooking the atlantic. And the rings were from his parent wedding, his had been sent home in the death letter the army wrote.

All of these items, all of these memories, sadness filled his heart and soon anger overtook that. Out of his pocket he pulled a lighter and soon he had set the letter ablaze. Across the room he ran, over the fabric and then up the shaft of the feather to the roof of the top of the wooden walls of the box. Flame engulfed the contents of the room and licked at his back. On the top of the walls he stood and out he gazed. He saw his mothers empty room be for him, desolate, solum, and washed with bright light that poured in through the many windows. He then peer down wards and behold he saw, surrounded in a pool of blood as red and the velvet on his mothers dress, flinging in the sun, his body. Blood oozed from the Gash is the bodies for head and the man look older than he had ever looked before. It’s hair was now as white as snow, his eye were shut, and his lips were peeled open slightly. The sight of his own self lying before him in a sea of blood sent a jolt through his body thrusting him from the top of the wooden walls into the flame below him that he had set out of anger and sadness.

Another rush and white light surrounded him. His mind cleared and he remembered. He remembered his mother death, he remembered clearing out her house, he remembered opening the closet and the contents spilling over him, he remembered the box hitting his head and causing him to pass out, he remembered how that very box was his mother special jewelry box given to her by her grandmother and how she had kept all the memories of his father in it, and then he remembered nothing. White light extended on for ever and peace settled over his body. A path appeared before his feet and a voice flowed through his ears calling him, telling him to walk. White light surrounded him contentedness overcame him, and he passed on.