Linda.

And as the sun started to rise I felt a weight being lifted off my chest. I had made it through another day, another beautiful summer day. The birds were singing their morning chorus and the sunlight was pouring through my window falling onto Linda’ my guitar, my most treasured possession, left to me by my father in his will.

Linda had been my dad’s best friend since my mum had died aged just 29 from cancer. I remember waking up some mornings looking out my bedroom window and seeing my dad sat at the end of our garden guitar in hand singing into the distance. I would often slip on my dressing gown and slippers run downstairs and sit with him and listen as he sang about my mother. However when I turned 12 my father met another woman named Lucy, within the year they were married and a baby on the way. I was cast aside and Linda was pushed to the back of the cupboard to gather dust.

My mother was the only reason I didn’t leave, all of my memories were here and I couldn’t part with that. So I suffered in silence and pretended to my father that I was happy when in actual fact I was crying myself to sleep each night. Then aged just 16 my father died in a car accident. I was distraught parentless and lived in a house where I was hated. A few days after he died a man came to our house and told us our father had a will made and we were to go to a reading. We arrived and as expected everything my father owned was left to my step-mother, everything except Linda and an envelope which was addressed to me. I waited until I was home to open the letter, I locked my door laid Linda on the bed in front of me and read.

Dear Olivia,
If you’re reading this it’s because I am no longer here. I have left you Linda as I know that you will take great care of her. I’m sorry I never taught you to play her and I’m sorry I wasn’t around much after I met Lucy. I guess I just wanted to shut everything out; I couldn’t handle Hannah being gone. And with you being the perfect image of her it just reminded me every day.
I know you thought I had forgotten about her but I never did. Late at night when everyone was asleep I would take Linda and sit in the garden and just play. The wind rustling leaves and the music rushing all around me reminded me of the nights we had spent laid under the stars. The night she told me that she was pregnant with you we were laid in that very spot just staring at the sky.
I have left Linda to you as I want you to learn to play her and carry on with what I couldn’t, keeping your mothers soul alive. I now you miss her but one day you will see her again.
I love you Olivia and I am sorry for everything I put you through.
Love Dad
Xxx

Tears spilled onto the letter as read the final words. What I wouldn’t give to have my dad here now holding me tight. After a few moments I dried my eyes and picked up Linda set her in my lap and strummed, a beautiful sound came out and instantly memories floated around me.

Me, Dad and mum eating ice cream in the kitchen, mum pushing me on my swing, Dad and mum holding each other in the moonlight

Dad was right Linda kept my mother’s spirit alive in me. I would learn to play her and I would never forget my mum. However just after I hit my 18th birthday I got majorly ill, rushed to hospital and diagnosed with cancer. I started getting so thin I thought I would die. I was kept in the hospital for a few months and when I got better i was allowed home again.

For weeks I spoke to no one, no doctors and no friends, not even my step-mother and her daughter. I just took Linda to the garden, sat and played day in and day out.

I imagined how my mother had felt while she was going through this, having to leave her husband and daughter behind. The hurt, jealousy and the pain of not being able to stay with us. I missed her more now than ever I needed her to be here for me. To tell me everything was going to be okay. I was scared of dying and I didn’t want to be alone. I had no friends, no family, nothing I was alone.

So each day I spend my time playing Linda reliving the memories of my family knowing one day that the inevitable will come. And I too will be gone.