The excitement was palpable not only in her voice, her face was glowing and her hands were feverish as they emptied the contents of the shopping bag on the kitchen table.
'Look what I found at the bus stop', she said, triumphantly producing a blue umbrella. Ta-dah!
Ellie was too busy peeling potatoes to feign much enthusiasm, but as she sensed the twins were about to make a stupid joke and ruin her mother's mood, she dropped what she was doing, wiped her hands and came over to check the old woman's marvelous finding. If you ignored a few tiny holes in the fabric, the umbrella was quite decent.
'Very nice!', she said, silently wondering why would anyone carry around an umbrella on such a sunny day. Whatever...
The old woman stood there expectant. She needed more praise, Ellie knew, so she offered the most genial smile she could conjure.
It pained her to see her Mom fighting a losing battle against time and she knew the woman was suffering in silence from all the indignities that come with old age. She had become a shadow of her former self and she was feeling increasingly irrelevant to them and their busy lives.
'It'll come in quite handy, Mom. My old umbrella is actually crap'.
Her mother's face was beaming, now. She was still useful, after all.

The day he lost his old blue umbrella George Brown decided to call it quits and hanged himself. It had been going on for more than one year his battle against dementia. No matter how hard he tried, he kept forgetting things. He'd tried all the tricks he could find online from improving his diet, taking supplements, writing things in his diary or leaving stick-it notes all over the house. 'Monday 10 am - doctor's appointment. Don't miss it'. 'June 15 - Helen's birthday. Phone call!!!' 'Wednesday June 17 - Pick up the new glasses.'
Nothing worked - he'd check his diary first thing in the morning only to forget everything by the time he was done drinking coffee. Or he'd dress up to visit his doctor but ended up at the market buying a bag of oranges, which were then left to rot on the table as the juice-maker was broken since before the death of his wife.
His increasingly frequent mistakes left him mortified and the worst of it was the embarrassment he could read on his son's face. It pained him to witness the despair in Paul's eyes.
When he did not fall asleep in front of the TV, George spent hours worrying over his future. Paul was a good boy and handled everything with a smile, but George didn't want to be a burden for his son and his family. Most of all, he was afraid he'd become one of those senile old men that end up wandering the streets in their pajamas. He pictured himself shivering in soiled pajamas at the police station and Paul coming to pick him up. The thought always made him cry and he promised himself he won't let this happen. Get out while you're still ahead!
It had been a particularly bad week and now he'd lost the umbrella. He had no idea where he might have left it or why he had taken it with him in the first place since it was such a nice day. One of these days he'll forget where he lived.
First he checked around the house to see if everything was in order - the taps were turned off and the stove, too. He washed the plates in the sink, took out the garbage, put his ID card on the kitchen table and made sure the door was unlocked, so Paul won't have to break in. It was time.

Story written for @mariannewest's freewrite challenge. Today's prompt was: suffer in silence! Check out her blog and join our freewrite community.

Thanks for reading!

Image: Pixabay