The Last Cousin

~ Candace

d’Verse Poets Pub – Prosery #3: Love After Love

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I’m Kim from Writing in North Norfolk, welcoming dVerse poets to the third ever Prosery prompt, when we ask you to write a very short piece of prose that tells a story, with a beginning, a middle and an end, in any genre of your choice.

As it’s flash fiction, we have a limit of 144 words; an additional challenge is to hit 144 exactly. The special thing about Prosery is that we give you a complete line from a poem, which must be included somewhere in your story, within the 144-word limit.

For the third Prosery, I’d like you to write a story that includes the following line from ‘Love After Love’, a poem by Derek Walcott:

‘You will love again the stranger who was your self’.

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The Last Cousin

I carefully pack a dozen jars of homemade grape jam into a cardboard box. Each jar is wrapped in newspaper to keep them from banging together on the three-hour drive to Lake Erie. The buns and a tub of peanut butter are already in the back of my Jeep.

It’s the annual ‘Cousinfest” weekend. I’m the only one left of five. I plan to hold a remembrance ceremony on the beach. I’ll stay up all night eating PB&J sandwiches, that had been our tradition since we were teenagers. In the morning, I’ll scatter the ashes of cousin Number Four in the rose garden of the beach house.

I don’t know how I’ll carry on without those girls who were closer to me than sisters.

I hold tight to the last words of Number Four, “You will love again the stranger who was your self”.

Published by Candace

I am a reader, a writer, and a snapper of photos

16 thoughts on “The Last Cousin”

  6. This struck so close to home! For over 30 years three dear friends and I spent a week in the Great Smoky Mountains every autumn. I, too, am the only one left. We are the keepers of memories!

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  7. Very beautiful way to remember. I had 24 cousins plus those I don’t know from my dad who died. This is the age when I’m beginning to lose them, 2 this year. And being the oldest, it is sobering.

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  8. I lost my last cousin to lung cancer last year. I understand the sadness. I only had 4 cousins but we were close. I like the commemorative meal on the beach. These food items hold such memories for us all. Such a bittersweet write.

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