The Blessed Vest by: Adele Lubbe

The Blessed Vest

By: Adele Lubbe

“Why are you crying grandma?”, comes a startling little voice while Janis is packing those useless tings of yesterday which cannot be thrown away.  Quickly wiping the tear running down her cheek, she turns to Stefan, her son Carl’s youngest.  ”I am not crying sweetie, some dust got in my eye from all this junk I’m packing away”, she replies forcing a smile back at him.

Clinging to the vest that brought a tear to her eye, Janis decides to tell Stefan the story of the blessed vest, so he may carry forth  the legendary solution to the problem of siblings who don’t get along. 

“You see this vest Stefan?”, she starts telling him as she pulls him closer and seats herself on the bed with him on her lap.  Bubbling with excitement for the story of this huge, plain white vest he replies in anticipation: “Yeah Grandma?”.  “This is the blessed vest that once belonged to your grand daddy whom you never got to know.  He was a very helpful guy all his life, but he was taken from us when your dad and aunt Trish were still very young.”  She pauses a second or two….  Relieved when he didn’t ask what had happened to her late husband, John, she continues: “”I had to raise them on my own.  They differ only a year in age and when she went to primary school and he had to do his final year in nursery school, they were starting to have some issues, since aunt Trish was on her own then and she started acting all weird like girls do at that age.  I rushed to pick them up from school the one day.  First your dad since he was the closest to my work and then aunt Trish.  When I stopped at the primary school, aunt Trish rushed to the door, opens it and demands he gets in the back seat, because she is the elder between the two.  And so it all started.  Since then they just would fight about anything and everything.

It wasn’t always easy having to do everything myself and I got quite frustrated at their constant disagreements.  Just when I thought it got too much to handle, while packing washing away one evening, listening to their fighting, I found your grand daddy’s vest magically appearing in my cupboard.  Since he was a huge man, the vest was big enough for both of them to fit in and then that vest became my blessing.  I took the vest and said to them that from then onwards, every time they fight, they have to wear the vest together and until they learn to get along, they will remain side by side wearing that vest.

Needless to say, but from that day I merely mentioned the “blessed vest” and all peace and quiet were restored.”  Stefan laughs as he promises he will one day use the same “trick” to teach his kids to get along if they ever fight.  He jumps up and as he is leaving the room, he looks back at Janis and winks.  ”Its okay if you miss grand daddy you know”.

About Adele Lubbe

Adele is a realist with a life of lessons en endeavors that taught me kindness and cruelty. She love words and truly live my life as honest and true as possible and help where I can, when I can and I hope my words could inspire others to rise from dark sadness unto a prism of joyful and meaningful paths into the future. If I could say this today, anyone can do it!

See the rest of the Pregnancy and Children Short Stories