The Divine Flame

Yvonne, born and raised in Chicago, is a divorced Administrative Assistant in the health care industry, working at a prestigious city hospital for the past eight years. Divorced for two, she’s the proud mother of six: Daniel and Jamie, her young adults; Jordyn and Michael, the teens; and the stair-step twins, Giselle and Gemma, the little ones she had during her short-lived, starry-eyed marriage.

“Looking for love in all the wrong places” should’ve been her personal motto. Loyal to a fault, she’d been tied to two men in her life who tried — and failed — to change this self-reliant, and head-strong-ass woman. Over the past year, she’d cautiously stepped back into the dating world, and oh, did she regret it. Not the divorce — that was the right move — but the whole experience of online dating? E-dating sucks ass.

The phone rang, displaying a contact name Yvonne rarely ever sees on her screen, one brisk late-fall evening at home.

“Auntie Eve! What the hell? She never calls me!” Panic surged through Yvonne as she snatched up the phone, fearing the worst — about her cousin currently in the hospital.

“Hello? Auntie Eve? What’s wrong?!”

“Hey, Yvy,” Aunt Eve’s exhausted, somber voice came through. “Daddy passed.”

“What? Oh noooo!” Yvonne shrieked, breaking down in tears. Disheveled, she managed to ask, “When… how… what?!”

“Earlier today,” Aunt Eve explained. “He was having trouble breathing, then as the ambulance was on their way, he stopped. They tried to revive him, but…” Her voice trailed off, heavy with grief.

Yvonne held her head in disbelief. Sadness washed over her, but beneath it lingered a complicated relief. Years of resentment toward her grandfather’s verbal, physical and psychological abuse — abuse no one outside her immediate family ever acknowledged, and for which he never apologized — had left scars she couldn’t ignore.

She mourned the relationship she never truly had, though in recent years he had made faint attempts with her at lighthearted conversation during family gatherings or funerals. Another part of her carried the weight of years spent masking her true feelings, keeping the peace to avoid conflict.

Aunt Eve continued, “I’ll let you know what we’ve planned once we get everything together.”

Yvonne asked, “Does Trish know?”

Aunt Eve paused, taking a deep breath. “No. We’re gonna wait until she gets discharged. And don’t put it on social media — she’s still scrolling on there.”

Yvonne exhaled, steadying herself. “Okay. I’m so sorry, Auntie. Thank you for calling to let me know. I love you.”

“I love you too, Yvy.”

They hung up, holding onto their connection in that brief, fragile moment.

Yvonne dropped the phone and broke down, sobs wracking her body. Her kids were already circling around her, panic in their voices.

“Ma, what happened?!”

Through the tears, she managed to tell them. Their reactions came all at once:

“Dang.”

“Whaaaat?”

“Oh my God.”

“Ma, I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t so much about who had passed—they barely knew him. Yvonne had always kept her mother’s side of the family at arm’s length, too much history, too much pain. Funerals and the occasional holiday gathering were the only times they crossed paths. But seeing their mother cry—really cry—was almost unbearable for them.

She was the strong one, the upbeat one, the silly, fun-loving woman who carried the whole house on her back. On her worst days, her kids might catch a single frustrated tear slip out, but even then, they knew if it were up to her, she’d rather punch the source of her pain in the face than let it see her broken.

The twins, teens, and her adult daughter, Jamie wrapped themselves around her, a wall of love holding her steady. The only one missing was her oldest, Daniel—Tre’, as she still called him since he was the third. He was grown now, living with his girlfriend. God, she missed having him under her roof so much at times.

Once the storm inside her calmed a little, Yvonne pulled out a notepad. She knew what she had to do. Her therapist and all those self-help gurus she followed online said the same thing: write it out. A “let it go letter,” they called it. Pour the pain onto paper, say the things you never got to say, and then release it.

She’d done it before—years ago. A rough draft of a letter to her grandfather still sat unfinished, tucked away in her things. She never had the nerve to edit it, let alone send it. But tonight felt different. Tonight, she needed to get it out. To bleed all of it onto the page, once and for all.

She stared at the blank page for a long moment, pen trembling in her hand before the words began to spill.

“Granddad,

I needed you, to be my protector,” she wrote, her throat tightening. “After what Mama’s boyfriend did to me, after the way my body was violated while I was still a child, I needed you to step in. Instead, DCFS came and took me, my sister, and my little brother away from Mama—the very person who wasn’t the culprit at all. They said she wasn’t fit, that she had put us in harm’s way by letting him into our home, even though she had a child with him too. They ripped us away from her and placed us in what they called ‘a safe place’ with you and Grandma. But instead of safety, I found another person to fear.”

The memories came sharp and uninvited, each one carving its way back into her chest. The day the vase slipped from the breakfront—how he didn’t hesitate, didn’t even ask questions, before choosing violence. He had rushed past Trish (his favorite) who was in the dining room also, to reach Yvonne, hands and rage flying against her 10-year-old head, trying to shove her down the basement stairs as if her life meant nothing.

And then, the ice cream. That one still stung in a quiet, cruel way. She could see it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday: him stumbling in drunk, asking the kids if they wanted a treat, handing each one a bowl of ice cream. All of them except her. She had stood there last in line, waiting with a flicker of hope, only to watch him slam the container back in the freezer and walk right past her like she was invisible.

Her pen dug deeper into the paper as she exhaled shakily. “Do you know what that did to me? Do you know how many times I questioned if I was even worth being seen, let alone loved? I carried that ache for years, waiting for you to notice, to care, to do better. But you never did. The thing I realized, though, is that you were never really in a place—mentally or emotionally—where I could feel safe with you when you were in pain yourself. I don’t hate you. Hell, I’m not even mad at you, anymore at least. I do love you, regardless. I mourn the loss of someone who could’ve been a great father figure to me and a role model for my kids. The lessons I’ve learned from you—and from our experience—are deeply woven into my growth. I am a grown woman now, and I forgive you."

While finishing the letter, Yvonne had a sudden vision: she saw herself standing before her grandfather’s casket, slipping a folded note into the pocket of his jacket, whispering her final goodbyes. The image was so vivid she almost felt the paper between her fingers.

“Yeah,” she whispered to herself, a small sense of resolve forming. “Since I can’t send it to him anymore, I’ll put it in his casket—or maybe tuck it into the flowers we throw in. That’s what I’ll do.”

A few days after, once Trish was strong enough to call, she told Yvonne she’d already heard the news of their grandfather’s passing—from Cynthia.

The mention of that name was enough to make Yvonne’s stomach twist. Cynthia—their other cousin’s wife no one in the family ever really liked. Always inserting herself where she wasn’t wanted as if she were entitled to every private detail. Always interrupting, talking over people, Cynthia had no tact. No respect. And now she’d gone too far.

The worst part was how she’d once treated her own stepdaughter—Yvonne hadn’t forgotten that. Petty, vindictive, and cruel. During a fight with her husband, she’d retaliated by taking the young girl’s bed when she moved out. Who does that to a child?

Yvonne’s chest burned as Trish described Cynthia's call. "She said girl what's this I heard about Granddad?! Why are they saying he passed away?!" Yvonne was seething. “She called you? While you were in the hospital?!” Yvonne’s voice cracked with rage. “How dare she?! What the hell is wrong with this bitch?! Who even told her in the first place?!”

Trish stayed quiet on the other end, her voice frail but steady when she finally said, “She did apologize. She said she didn't know I was in the hospital.”

Yvonne nearly shouted, pacing the room. “You were still recovering, Trish. We thought you weren’t going to make it—and she dumps that on you?! This is what happens, when the family doesn't keep communication.”

The thought of it made Yvonne's blood boil. Trish had been closer to their grandfather than anyone—so close she’d always called him Daddy. To have someone like Cynthia take away the family’s choice of how and when Trish should hear this sensitive news… it felt like a violation. A theft of something sacred.

Yvonne closed her eyes, her fists tightening. Her grief, already raw, now had a sharp edge of fury.

~YVONNE~

The hardest part wasn’t just the call; it was the waiting. Life didn’t stop — Thanksgiving came and went, birthdays came and went, and we all had to keep moving as if our world hadn’t cracked open. The funeral wasn’t until almost two weeks later, on December 3rd, a week after Trish was discharged from the hospital.

That waiting stretched like an open wound, too raw to heal, too deep to ignore. I knew the real storm hadn’t even begun. That day was coming, and we would all have to face it. I tried to prepare myself, but nothing could have prepared me for that morning — the drive, the faces, the weight of walking into that chapel. That day would change everything.

I couldn’t wait for it all to be over already. I was ready to bury more than just my grandfather that day. Along with his body, I planned to put my letter—along with every ounce of resentment and hard feeling I had carried my whole life—into the ground with him. No one would know what I slipped in if they saw me drop it. And in that quiet, hidden act, I would finally reclaim a piece of myself, a freedom I had been denied for far too long.