Ready Or Not ?

“I’m sure there’s a good reason why your wardrobe consists of nothing but black dresses with sheer black veils for each. No one has seen you in anything else for the past month.. Why did you throw everything else away in your closet?” Val asked her grandfather.


“I’m in mourning,” he said as he ironed a black tshirt that was to be worn underneath the dress. He coughed hard, a few times. It was the kind of cough that made one think a lung was being coughed up. Then suddenly he was alright; he went back to ironing.

“Mourning for what?” Val asked. “No one’s dead or dying. Grandma died five years ago. You’re as healthy and as strong as an ox. I should know; I’m your doctor’s assistant. So, why the black dresses and the veil?”

He pulled a short-sleeved dress out of the closet and lied it on the bed, and a long-sleeved black laced dress and lied it on the bed next to the other dress.

“Which dress fits today’s occasion? Pick one,” he said, facing Val but looking at the dresses.

She looked at both the dresses. Pointing at the long-sleeved dress, her mouth opened, she looked as she had seen a ghost.

“Granddad, that dress looks very familiar.”

He smiled.

“Yeah, that’s the dress we all wanted your grandmother to wear when she died, but she wanted to wear my black tuxedo instead.”