to grandmother's house we go

There she stood, my eighty-seven year old grandmother, a strong woman who during the past two years has been the victim of multiple strokes, a bout of shingles that has blinded her in her right eye, and the death of my grandfather; there she stood, in her pink sweater and black slacks, with her hands on each of my aunt's shoulders for support, ready to move over to her bed and get changed for the night. And while she stood there, it happened: she gased - and then laughed, and then we all laughed too with the humor of the past two years, and the love of many more. She buried her head into my aunts shoulders and staggered: relief - pure, ecstatic relief. This fart had been unlike any other. This fart hadn't been funny in the traditional sense. This fart had an 'x' factor. It had an element that only those that were there and those that had been through what they had been through could appreciate...wow, an explosion.