Kimber looks around the room, taking it all in. The large desk, the leather chair, the bookcases against each mahogany paneled wall. Her sweeping gaze takes note of the family photographs and his favorite painting on the walls. Her high school diploma, and the College degrees of each of her siblings hung prominently. Intermingled were various certificates and awards from over the years adorning the walls throughout his office.
Nothing she hasn't seen before, many times in fact, "but circumstances are different now, aren't they?" she says to herself, her arousal completely dissipates as the weight of being in her late father's office comes to bare.
Emotions wash over her as fond memories of her father come rushing back, triggered by the family pictures on the wall. Trepidation turned to absolute joy when he taught her to ride a bike. Pure glee when she caught a fish for the first time from the pond spanning the edge of the Wilstermann's and their property, where he taught her how to cast. Playing ice hockey on that very same pond most winters with Tam and Hugh Wilstermann.
The exhilaration and sense of accomplishment when he oh-so-patiently was teaching her to drive, in Great Grandpa's old 1941 Dodge Farm flatbed truck no less! That truck was his baby, well other baby after her, he was always tinkering with it and kept it running and looking great for its age. "Don't tell any of them, but one day this truck will be yours, sweetheart," he shared with me in a conspiratorial tone and a sly grin on his face after one driving lesson.
Summers were always the best growing up! They'd all pile into the car and head to the Lake house, staying for weeks on end. There was no A/C at the lake house, he wouldn't hear of it. Ceiling fans in every room, all the windows open wide. "Too hot? Then play outside, go for a swim in the lake, or I can find you some chores," he'd say to us.
We would eagerly run out of the house to find something to do, well at least Marky and I did. He was just barely a year older than me. Sometimes Tam and Hugh Wilstermann would spend part of the summer with us. We'd all keep ourselves occupied and entertained until it was dinner time.
Thinking of 'Marky' made her smile. If I called him that now and not Marcus he would get so pissed, never having liked the nickname in the first place. Her thoughts drifted to her other siblings, Emm, Erin, and Eli. They were all so much older than her growing up, leaving her and Marcus out of basically anything and everything that older siblings got up to.
Smile fading as her thoughts turn to the crash that took her mother, father, and eldest sister Emily. "It happened a little over 5 years ago now...I was just 23 at the time," the weight of her thoughts settling in her chest. "Maybe if I was there, it would have been different," tears welling up as her mind turns to the thoughts of that traumatic event that changed her family forever, changed her forever.
