“Mom, can I sit in the front?” I asked my mother as I climbed over the old white picket fence of our house, since I am still a little short to reach the latch. My mom locked the door behind her, but stayed facing the old broken green screen door. Her back facing me, I noticed her sniff and instantly take her sunglasses from her purse and place them over her eyes. As the turned to me, her face seemed to glisten in the sun a little more than usual. I didn’t understand.

“No Taylor, please just sit in the backseat. Your only 4 years old.” She paused for a moment, and turned to look at the beautiful wild flowers, beginning to turn brown with the chance of weather. Usually, I would argue back to my mother, but today something was unusual. The typical pep in her step was missing.

We drove in complete silence for what felt like a century. As a sat buckled in the back seat picking my pink polish off of my finger nails, our vehicle finally came to a stop. As I peered out of the car window I noticed that we were at my favorite place…. The Camden Park.

I got out of the car, but noticed something quite unusual… Mom and I were the only ones there. The only movement of the park was a slight sway of the swings and whistle through the trees, all caused by the wind. I instantly ran to my favorite swirly slide, while my mother slowly picked herself up out of the car. “Taylor” mom called to me with sorrow in her voice.

“Yes ma’am?” A little concerned as to why everything seemed so unordinary.

“Slide a few more times, and in a few minutes come over here by this pond to see if we can find the orange fish again.”

I instantly made my way to the bottom of the playground to go join my mother by the small creek, knowing that for whatever reason; today wasn’t a day to keep her waiting.

We sat and looked for the orange fish, but after waiting for a few minutes it was obvious that they were no longer there. I looked up at my mother, and saw drops of water running down her face shimmering in the sun. She took her sunglasses off for the first time since we left the house, and looked me in the eyes. Her peridot green eyes were filled with water, and as I looked back into them I could only see my own reflection.

I held my mother’s hand and she gave them a little squeeze. “Momma, are you ok? What’s wrong?” I asked her.

With moms bottom lip trembling, she began to speak. “Tay does your daddy love you?”

“Well of course he does Mommy.” She cuts me off before I finished talking.

“More than what?”

“More than this...” I spread my arms out as wide as they could spread as if waiting for someone to come into me for a hug.

“Your right baby girl, that is completely right.” My mom was crying harder now, with tears streaming down her face at a rapid pace. I sat quietly for a moment, and as my mother got herself together again she stated, “Taylor, daddy is gone now. He left this morning.”

“Where did he go? Did him and Tut go on another hunting trip this morning?”

“No Tay, he is going to be gone for a little longer than that.”
“Then…… Where is he….” My voice trailed off and a lump formed into my stomach, and I had a gut feeling that at this point I was questioning if it would ever go away.
“Daddy…. Well…. Well…. He went to Heaven….. He went to Heaven to be with Jesus.”

My brain was spinning and I felt my pulse beating in my head. Tears began to stream down my face, and my mother seemed to be in a far off place. Far from where we are here. My eyes are just a big blur, and I cannot focus on anything in my view. I feel as if I was about to be so dizzy, that I was going to roll strait into the pond that was right in front of me.
I look around, and suddenly something catches my eye. I noticed that the orange and yellow beauties in the open fields were turning dark. The beauty that for so long covered the fields around the park and the fields around my house were beginning to fade away. Turned to brown. Because… the wild flowers have began to die.