William Cass
Frames
My sister, Eleanor, didn’t start giving frames for bereavement gifts until a co-worker’s mother died. Her co-worker was the receptionist on their hospital unit for medically fragile children and, like Eleanor, was in her mid-fifties. She’d lived with and cared for her mother for many years and kept a small photo of her taped to the upper corner of her computer screen. While she was out on bereavement leave, Eleanor fitted the photo into the frame she bought, then left it with a sympathy card on her desk. The woman was so touched by the gesture that Eleanor continued to do the same whenever someone she knew lost a loved one.
Eleanor and I lived together in the brick house our parents bequeathed to us. Two years older than me, Eleanor had never been married or in a serious relationship, and neither had I. We resembled each other: plain-featured, overweight, unattractive. She was her unit’s social worker, and I worked as a reference librarian. We led a simple, companionable life together. We had no pets, took turns cooking, shared household duties, and enjoyed the same British detective shows on PBS at night before turning in early to read. Eleanor liked knitting, gardening, and doing yoga, while I filled my free time woodworking, playing online chess, and taking long walks through our neighborhood.
The second time I can remember her giving a bereavement frame wasn’t too much later than the first. It occurred when our next door neighbor’s husband passed away. They’d lived next to us since we were children, and Eleanor must have signed both of our names to the card because the old woman thanked each of us with teary-eyed appreciation. Eleanor told me afterwards she’d explained the gift’s intention in the card.
Over the next several years, she gave frames to our mailman, the checker at the corner grocery, and a cousin living across the country who we never saw but with whom we exchanged Christmas cards. The frames were always small, 3x5 or 4x6, and made of brushed nickel. She purchased them online and began keeping a supply on hand that she stored above the cereal boxes in our pantry.
When my head librarian at work had to put down his ancient dog, she sent me with a card and frame for him. She gave one to a nurse on an adjoining hospital unit whose teenaged son drove drunk into a tree, as well as to our dentist when his wife committed suicide. Old friends she stayed in touch with on Facebook got them; so did next of kin in the local obituaries with whom she was acquainted. Over the ensuing years, she did the same for many more people, some of whom she knew only passably well; I lost count of the total number. Afterwards, I was often witness to their expressions of gratitude, which always seemed deeply heartfelt and sincere.
Eleanor died herself overnight in her sleep shortly after she turned sixty-four. I found her when I went to awaken her after she didn’t come down for breakfast before work one morning. Some sort of heart attack, I was told. Per her wishes, there was no funeral or memorial service; I simply spread her ashes over her backyard garden as she’d requested in her will, then stood by myself there on that cold, gray, fall afternoon and wept for a long time.
The first frame and accompanying bereavement card arrived for me almost immediately after her death. Others quickly followed. I put photos in each: her alone and the two of us together at various stages of life, with our parents when we were young, a couple I found that included extended family I barely remembered from years ago. I placed them throughout the house in random places. When I came upon one, I sometimes stopped to brush dust of its glass and recall the gentle spirit captured in her expression. As I did, I usually found myself shaking my head. At times, I smiled. On other occasions, it was hard to keep my lower lip from quivering. There she would remain, perched on her cardboard stands, for as much time as I had left myself. I was thankful for those frames, those reminders, even though I always felt the same pang when I encountered them, a hard-to-describe combination of longing, regret, admiration, pain, profundity, love. Looking out at me in her quiet way, full of life: my sister, Eleanor.
William Cass has had over 300 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and Zone 3. He won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. A nominee for both Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net anthologies, he has also received six Pushcart Prize nominations. His first short story collection, Something Like Hope & Other Stories, was published by Wising Up Press in 2020, and a second collection, Uncommon & Other Stories, was recently released by the same press. He lives in San Diego, California.
Eleanor and I lived together in the brick house our parents bequeathed to us. Two years older than me, Eleanor had never been married or in a serious relationship, and neither had I. We resembled each other: plain-featured, overweight, unattractive. She was her unit’s social worker, and I worked as a reference librarian. We led a simple, companionable life together. We had no pets, took turns cooking, shared household duties, and enjoyed the same British detective shows on PBS at night before turning in early to read. Eleanor liked knitting, gardening, and doing yoga, while I filled my free time woodworking, playing online chess, and taking long walks through our neighborhood.
The second time I can remember her giving a bereavement frame wasn’t too much later than the first. It occurred when our next door neighbor’s husband passed away. They’d lived next to us since we were children, and Eleanor must have signed both of our names to the card because the old woman thanked each of us with teary-eyed appreciation. Eleanor told me afterwards she’d explained the gift’s intention in the card.
Over the next several years, she gave frames to our mailman, the checker at the corner grocery, and a cousin living across the country who we never saw but with whom we exchanged Christmas cards. The frames were always small, 3x5 or 4x6, and made of brushed nickel. She purchased them online and began keeping a supply on hand that she stored above the cereal boxes in our pantry.
When my head librarian at work had to put down his ancient dog, she sent me with a card and frame for him. She gave one to a nurse on an adjoining hospital unit whose teenaged son drove drunk into a tree, as well as to our dentist when his wife committed suicide. Old friends she stayed in touch with on Facebook got them; so did next of kin in the local obituaries with whom she was acquainted. Over the ensuing years, she did the same for many more people, some of whom she knew only passably well; I lost count of the total number. Afterwards, I was often witness to their expressions of gratitude, which always seemed deeply heartfelt and sincere.
Eleanor died herself overnight in her sleep shortly after she turned sixty-four. I found her when I went to awaken her after she didn’t come down for breakfast before work one morning. Some sort of heart attack, I was told. Per her wishes, there was no funeral or memorial service; I simply spread her ashes over her backyard garden as she’d requested in her will, then stood by myself there on that cold, gray, fall afternoon and wept for a long time.
The first frame and accompanying bereavement card arrived for me almost immediately after her death. Others quickly followed. I put photos in each: her alone and the two of us together at various stages of life, with our parents when we were young, a couple I found that included extended family I barely remembered from years ago. I placed them throughout the house in random places. When I came upon one, I sometimes stopped to brush dust of its glass and recall the gentle spirit captured in her expression. As I did, I usually found myself shaking my head. At times, I smiled. On other occasions, it was hard to keep my lower lip from quivering. There she would remain, perched on her cardboard stands, for as much time as I had left myself. I was thankful for those frames, those reminders, even though I always felt the same pang when I encountered them, a hard-to-describe combination of longing, regret, admiration, pain, profundity, love. Looking out at me in her quiet way, full of life: my sister, Eleanor.
William Cass has had over 300 short stories accepted for publication in a variety of literary magazines such as december, Briar Cliff Review, and Zone 3. He won writing contests at Terrain.org and The Examined Life Journal. A nominee for both Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net anthologies, he has also received six Pushcart Prize nominations. His first short story collection, Something Like Hope & Other Stories, was published by Wising Up Press in 2020, and a second collection, Uncommon & Other Stories, was recently released by the same press. He lives in San Diego, California.