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Well I guess I like to punish myself and read things that are bound to make me sad/cry. Ok, so the narration style of this was particularly unique. I like the repetition of "I'm sorry I dropped or forgot the flowers." I think it was done purposefully, and then it made me further sad whenever I realized this individual likely suffers from a memory disease. Of course, for personal reasons it struck me something fierce. Ben remembering things from early on in life with lots of detail, but not really remembering more recent things, or those more recent things not really being as fleshed out as much in the narration. Yeah I wasn't sure if that was intentional, but I felt like that was something worth mentioning.
The conception of kids and grandkids not having enough time for him struck me too. As you know, totally relatable thing for me as well. And of course, the lack of time spent together only creates confusion or allows certain memories to slip away.
I think you did a good job of telling this story, making us sufficiently sad, but not totally killing us lol. Thanks for writing this Melanie!
<3 Courtney
*team ice otter*
Oh. Okay. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool coo—
Just rip my heart out. That's cool. Nah, I'm good. D:
Honestly, though, Mel. This was amazing. You did a fantastic job with weaving the narration into the plot of the story. The way Ben's dialogue (well, monologue) told us everything we needed to know about him and Annie and their lives...wow. I really loved that the realizations came slowly for me. Figuring out that they were elderly, that they were in a retirement home/hospice/nursing home, that Annie had demetia or Alzheimer's, etc. The information came to me slowly and really increased the impact of the narrative.
The ending was so hard. Losing someone is always difficult, but Ben doesn't really have many people in his life. But I like that he was still able to wish Annie the best in the hereafter since she's been reunited with her husband.
All-in-all, this was really lovely. You did a great job.
Best,
Emily
*for the Fairyland review event*
So I saw this as an entry to a challenge, and I must be feeling particularly self-destructive today, but I decided to read it and get in my feelings about things I've been avoiding for a very long time. Whew boy.
The attachment between Ben and Annie was lovely, and so illustrative of what I've seen happen in my Grandmother's care home. She once told me, years after the loss of my Grandfather, that she'd love to have a friend, not to ever get married again, but to have a friend would be lovely. Ben and Annie found that. I love that this is just from Ben's point of view, and whilst you get a sense there's something going on from his side too, I feel that the story even coming from his point of view is a great way to present him as still being the more lucid of the two. I so badly want to tell Ben that Annie was never lonely - they had each other, so how could she ever be.
The focus on the flowers, and how to a reader they're usually considered relatively unimportant, but how to Ben they are such a very important thing, is also so so... beautiful? perfect? painful? I don't know.
The small little hints at "I forget too", and questioning what he's saying.
And they’re all grown up now, so they don’t have much time for me either. hit the hardest. My Grandmother is currently in a care home, no one in my family has seen her in person since the start of March. She's met my partner for the first time 6 times. She whispers to my mum about how I'm the most beautiful thing - she's too shy to say it to me becuase she doesn't quite know who I am any more. But she does know I'm beautiful.
The more I think about this, the more it absolutely breaks me. Thanks for writing it. Thanks for helping me stop ignoring the difficult things. Thanks for also showing that although dementia is brutal and harsh, it can bring so many beautiful moments and memories in it's own right too.
Hey there!
I'm here to review your story for my Make TreacleTart Cry Challenge! I'll be breaking this review down into the categories that I'll be using to judge it.
Plot: I thought the plot of this was very interesting. At first, I wasn't sure what was going on, but as I moved from one section to the next, it became more apparent what was happening. It was really cleverly done.
Characterization: Your main character in this was so well written. In a very short piece, we get so much heartbreaking detail about him.
Sadness: This was heartbreaking to read. My grandmother passed away from Parkinson's syndrome when I was younger, so I have a lot of experience with dementia. I think you really captured it well and it felt very tragic and haunting.
Grammar/Spelling: This piece was written very well. I didn't notice any obvious mistakes and it flowed really well. Though the telling was a little confusing, that confusion only added to the story telling.
Really great job on this!
~Kaitlin
Hey, Melanie! Here for our swap :)
So I've heard nothing but good things about this story so I figured I just had to check it out and let me tell you I was not disappointed in the slightest.
I'm going to try to be professional and coherent before I descend into complete ranting, so I'm going to talk about how much I love this style of story. I honestly didn't even realize that I was only getting one side of the conversation, I was already just filling things in. It's such a cool way to tell a story and works so well with the story you're telling.
Okay, enough being coherent.
Oh my god, Melanie. Oh my god. I think you actually murdered me?? The two of them were so incredibly cute and we never even got to see Annie??
Ben is just the absolute sweetest thing in the entire world. When he was apologizing because he dropped the flowers? And then you brought it back again at the end and stabbed me right in the heart?? Genuis, 11/10 would get their heart ripped out again.
And then when he remembered her favorite flowers??? I'm a ghost now, a ghost is writing this review.
Melanie, this story was amaing, I absolutely loved it!! Thank you again for doing the swap :)
Ashley
Hello, Melanie,
That's your name right? Or is it Mel? Or... RGF? Sometimes names escape me (truthfully) and we all have to have ways of making us remember. (I usually do some sort of name game recognition. Sometimes it works. *grins*)
Anyhow, I'm here for your staff review for having Story of the Month for April. Congratulations. It's a great story.
I like how you've written Ben. He's nice, even as he's slipping into the dementia Annie has already seemingly slipped into. If that was what was meant, of course.
It sounds like they live together in a nursing home. That they aren't visited much by their family (until the last 'chapter', of course.) Being elderly and not having your family come see has got to suck, but Annie at least has Ben, and Ben has Annie.
In their own way, of course.
The ending is soooooo sad. I'm always a sucker for a good tearjerker, and this story is one. You've achieved your goal with me of making me cry, so thank you.
<3 juls
Hi! At Kris's recommendation, I'm here to spread some love and kindness!
This was such a beautiful story! I'm so impressed with what you managed to pack into just 700 words here. The format was really unusual, but I thought it worked so well - I read this through a second time to try and make sure I'd got everything properly, and it was even more impressive the second time around.
There was something almost childlike about Ben's voice at the start of this story, something that made me wonder about the protagonist until I read through to the end and things clicked into place. I thought you wrote this dialogue so well. It was such an effective and impressive way to tell this story, and I loved the originality of it.
The friendship (and hints of maybe something more) between Ben and Annie was so lovely throughout this piece. I loved Ben's determination and patience to keep visiting Annie. It's the one thing that he never really forgot throughout this piece and I could imagine that it was a routine that he'd held to long before this story began - that maybe even the two of them had been closer before dementia (or at least something very like it) began to take hold. You captured their friendship beautifully through this, though, and I really loved the way that we got details about both Ben's and Annie's lives in this piece, so that I felt like I knew both of them really well.
That ending, though. Wow - it packed a punch. When I realised that Annie had passed away and that the conversation Ben was having was with himself, or with Annie's memory - that was heartbreaking. I loved the way you captured the emotion in that scene, and the love that's behind Ben's visits. We also got a real sense of how much Annie had meant to him and their relationship that I really loved in that scene, even though the realisation that Annie wasn't there to listen was so sad.
Everything in this, right down to the little details like the fact that Annie's daughter is now visiting (although I have to hope that she visited before and Annie just forgot about it) were so poignant and effective. This was such a wonderfully vivid and emotive story, and I loved the originality behind the writing style too!
Sian :)
Author's Response:Hi Sian!! Thank you so much for this thoughtful review!
It definitely is an unusual format; I've never done anything quite like this before. I was just thinking of it in my head entirely in Ben's dialogue and thought I'd try writing it that way, with Ben's words providing the context for Annie's missing ones. I'm glad you liked it and that it worked out okay!
I definitely did intentionally make it sound childlike in the beginning, so that you might even think it was about a pair of kids.
What I also enjoyed about writing it in this style is that it allows for some interpretation and conjecture by the reader as to how long they've known each other, whether they knew each other before, etc., and I've loved reading your thoughts about all of it!
Thank you again for taking the time to read and review this; it was a lovely surprise!!
Melanie
i loved reading this even though it made me cry. you did an amazing job with the format you chose for the story and i'm seriously amazed at how much emotion and actual story you managed to pack into just ~700 words.
the way there are hints of friendship and (would be) romance was just the punch when we come to the end of the sstory. and everyhting is hinted at! the narrator is unreliable and then we come to the end and thins click into place and my review and frogs nomination end up being jumbled because of all the feelsTM.
the sadness of that last scene and the flowers and what they mean at the start and the end is uhhh i can't. it's beautiful in a 'you killed me' way. you're great at writing fluff in irrational but this is just something else, i really loved it.
kris
Author's Response:Kris! Thank you so much for this lovely, unexpected review!!
I'm so happy this worked out and communicated some feels. It is a different sort of story and format I haven't tried before. I enjoyed writing it in that format, though!
Thank you thank you so much!!
<3 Melanie
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