Sword and Urn (Edited & Revised)

Chapter 30

When my grandfather, cousins, aunt, and uncle came back I had a lot of names and faces to learn. I could see where my father got his nose when I looked at my grandfather Paul. My uncle Arlo had the same eyes as father. My youngest cousin Joshua looked quite a bit like I did at his age. His two older brothers Stephan and Robert were both much bigger and are still way stronger than I am. My aunt Judith has become the mother I've always wanted. She is so kind and was so quick to love me as her own son. I love my family.

My grandmother nursed Dalwark back to health and he set off back to his farm to ease the mind of his son who had been waiting for him for many days. As I watched him go I made plans in my mind to visit them. Perhaps I would spend a day at that merchant's table painting his items too, and stay at the Egg's Nest Inn again. For now I was enjoying my new family.

I sat in the barn at a table my grandfather had built for me to work on. At this table I fixed all sorts of things for my family. They brought me with them when they went to sell produce at the nearest market. My grandfather even gave me some money at first to buy items. I had most of the day to spend searching every merchant's table to find the very best deals. Then I would take my selections home and work on them so that the next time we went to market I could sell them for a profit. I would sand things down, paint them, fix them, and repurpose them. Right now, however, I was working on something I wouldn't sell for all the money in the world. It was my father's urn.

I was really attached to it and liked to always have it by my side, but now I was ready. Once it was complete, I could go with my new family and bury it in the family lot. I sat there, putting the last touches on it with my paint brush. I had purchased a great set of paints and some brushes on our last trip to the market. I stopped to let my last brushstrokes dry. I turned it over in my hand, looking at each scene I had depicted upon it's now smooth wooden surface.

The first scene was a recreation of the table my father and I used to sit at everyday ever since I was a small boy. With my smallest brush I had painted on a few of my favorite items we had displayed over the years.

The next image was my father's sword. I used a lot of my white paint in this image to make the sword look as if the blade was shining bright. It looked just like it did when my father finished sharpening and oiling it.

The next one may have seemed a bit silly but I wanted to keep with the theme. I was telling the story of my life and journey away from my home to a new one. It was a painting of the urn itself just as it had looked after my long quest. It was rough and had no shine to it. Looking at this painting made me remember what I felt like in those first few days after my father had died.

I turned the urn some more and saw where I had used all of my blues, greens, and more of the white. It was of the river I had started my trip along. The one that guided me to my new family. The one that provided a path away from the dangers of the road and a delicious fat-bellied fish for me to eat. The one I still went to with my cousins to catch fish for supper on occasion.

I twisted the urn in my hand one last time to see the painting of the lantern in the barn window. Its wick was lit and held a bold flame made of yellows, orange, and the last of my white paint. I was most proud of this one as an artist because the flame looked real. I looked at the lantern burning as I painted it. It almost made you want to squint your eyes when you looked upon it for a time.

Each painted image was about the size of my palm, but I painted them with such care that they could have been on their own canvas. I was proud of them. I kept it around in its finished state for many days. I would hold it and spin it slowly in my hands looking at the paintings and remembering everything.

There came a day when I was ready. I told my grandfather I wished to visit the family plot to bury my father. He got a strange fatherly look in his eye and placed a hand upon my shoulder.

"That sounds good Drade. Why don't we all go out together after our work is done today?"

So we worked like every other day. Everyone tended to the animals and produce while I sat at my table. I sanded down and painted a jewelry box that had seen better days. It was an easy job because all the intricate designs were already there; they had just faded from use. So I matched the paint color the best that I could and traced back over it until I retouched every detail. With my work done and the sound of my cousins coming in from the fields I knew it was almost time.

I picked up the urn which sat next to me on my work table as always, and went out to meet everyone. Whenever we were all together like that it was nearly as noisy as the market, but that day everyone was quiet. We marched off toward a patch of land that lay next to a forest, west of the farmland. Many gravestones lay on the ground and my grandfather walked up to one and pointed down to it.

"This is where my father lies, and mother on the other side of him. She went first when I was just twenty nine and your father was still learning to walk. Never thought it would be him who would..." he stopped. "Well, this will be a good resting place for him."

He took to digging a hole for a while and then handed the spade off to my uncle Arlo who finished. He stepped away, looking to me as he waved his hand toward the burial site. I stepped forward, holding the urn out in front of me. I turned it around one last time in my hands, examining each image to capture it clearly in my mind. I took a deep breath and let it out, looking up to my family and the horizon behind them.

The sun was setting, casting an orange splash of color across the sky which seemed to be glowing. I didn't want to give up the urn, the last part of my father that I had, but I told myself I was doing it for him. That's what Father would have wanted, for this to be the sun setting on my mourning of his passing. I had fulfilled his dying wish, bringing him to his home and burying him with his family.

Tomorrow would bring a sunrise and with it new memories to cherish. As I placed his urn into the ground I made him a new promise: I would have days filled with laughter as we had at our table in the market. I would put the bad days behind me and learn to love the life I had now surrounded by family. And just as he taught me, I would always get the best deals at the village market.

THE END