A Happy Ending
Corina Barr
Garry Melon had always been a very lonely man. He was never married, never had kids, and the one sister he did have, shut him out of her life almost thirty years ago. Most of his days were spent feeling sad and sorry for himself. He had lived in the same house ever since he dropped out of college almost 60 years ago. Even when he was young he lived an uneventful life. He never went on any family vacations, and Garry didn’t have very many childhood friends.
“Mr. Melon,” his doctor said, “I have some bad news. Your cancer test came back positive. The tumor in your liver has been growing for quite some time.”
“How bad is it?” Mr. Melon asked.
The doctor replied, “Without chemotherapy, I predict that you only have four weeks tops to live.”
This news hit Garry hard. He knew he wasn’t the healthiest old man, but the possibility of cancer had never crossed his mind.
When he returned to his vacant house, he looked at his thinning silver hair, his sorrow filled eyes, and trembling, wrinkled hands in the bathroom mirror. His dull life was replaying in his head over and over. He thought of all the lonely nights staring out the window, all the adventures he never even wanted to go on, and all of the life he missed out on after all these years. After almost half an hour of feeling sorry for himself, he thought, I’ve had enough of this sad life. It’s about time I do something to change it. In that moment he knew that with limited time left to live, something needed to change within him so he would be able to die a happy man.
Garry never dreamed the way other people did. He barely ever wanted to go anywhere or become anyone. Adventures rarely filled his head, but there was one place that he saw in a magazine many years ago. The only place he ever wanted to go was the Ethiopian Highlands. This magnificent place he saw for the first time many years ago snuck back into his head.
Without hesitation, Mr. Melon went to the bank and took out all the retirement money he had been saving for years. Many employees at the bank gave him strange looks and thought he was crazy. Not once did he second guess himself or his decision. That night be bought his plane ticket, and began to pack his bags.
As he was going through a drawer of clothes, two small, shiny objects caught his eye. The first was a small gold bracelet that he remembered his mother would wear every single day. He decided to pack it. The other object he saw was one of his father’s dog tags from when he was in the Military. The dog tag also got packed in his bags. These two items were all he had left of his parents, and he wanted them to come on his last journey.
At the airport Garry was filled with excitement, which was a rare occasion. As he got his ticket and waited to board the plane, another feeling arouse inside him, at first he wasn’t sure what the feeling was, but after a few minutes he realized that he felt very content.
“Welcome aboard!” said a flight attendant enthusiastically while offering him a petite bag of peanuts. Garry took the snack with a smile.
The flight was long, and Garry felt like he would never get to Ethiopia. After a long 14 hours of ginger ale, pretzels, and loud crying babies, the plane finally landed. The excitement Garry felt grew even larger when he realized that he was actually here, in Ethiopia, pursuing his dream.
The cramped bus ride to the hotel would have usually made Garry very grumpy and uncomfortable, but today was different. He could not wait to get to the village in the Ethiopian Highlands.
As the bus pulled up, his jaw dropped. The view was one he had never even dreamt of. A light fog filled the air. The landscape was green, mountainous and full of vegetation. Rigid cliffs surrounded him on all sides. He noticed a scrawny tree growing out of the side of a cliff and said to himself,
“This is amazing.”
When he entered the village he was greeted by skinny children, smiling parents and wrinkled elders. Everyone had a smile from ear to ear and welcomed Garry like he was one of their own, even though they had never met. There was something about these people that made Garry feel loved and for once in his life, complete. He never imagined that anyone could be so warming and kind. 
The next day Garry noticed a young boy who seemed to be down. He walked over to the boy and asked him why he looked so blue. To Garry’s surprise the boy replied,
“It’s my brother, he’s very sick and keeps getting worse. I don’t think he has very much time left.”
Those words went straight to Garry’s heart. The boy’s brother was in the same situation as him and he knew it couldn’t be easy for anyone.
“Can I see him?” Garry asked.
The boy said yes and they slowly walked to a little hut. Inside he saw a very skinny boy who looked as if he was holding onto life by a string. He started to cough, at first each cough was gentle, but they began to grow louder and more painful. The sick boy’s brother yelled for his parents. They came running in and tried to get the boy to stop coughing, but after a few unsuccessful minutes, they gave up. The coughing didn’t stop until the young man took his final gasp for air. The parents and brother started to cry, the boy especially hard. About two minutes passed when Garry looked up, shocked, to see the two adults smiling. The boy was still crying, but his parents took his hands and said to him softly,
“We know this is very sad, but we need to celebrate the beauty of your brother’s life. He would want us to all be happy that we ever knew him than to cry because he’s gone.”
Later that evening all of the villagers and Garry gathered around a fire. Dressed in colorful, fascinating clothes, they danced and sang in celebration of the boy’s life that was lost. At first Garry was confused, but then he realized that death doesn’t have to be full of sorrow and pain. The life you lived should be celebrated. This made Garry accept the fact that his life was almost over and he was okay with that. He never knew that something so terrible could also be so peaceful.
Along with a smile on Garry’s face, the celebration lasted for hours into the morning. Every tear that shed was a drop of pure happiness. It was the most heartwarming experience anyone could ever live to see.
As Garry’s trip continued, he continued to see beauty in everyone. He watched all of the kids play soccer together while the men and women worked and the elders taught. He wondered why everyone else couldn’t be this content. No one here ever fought, and all of their problems were sorted out by talking and finding a common ground.
After two and a half weeks in the village, Garry made the decision to live the last days of his life here, at a place that had made him the happiest he’s ever been. But, as he made this decision, he started to feel more sick by the minute. As he walked up to a group of laughing kids his knees got weak and he fell to his back. The kids gasped and ran for help. It took four villagers to pick Garry up and carry him to the small hut that once held the sick boy.
Garry was surrounded by smiles and hearts filled with love. He looked around and knew that this is how we wants to go. A toddler girl grabbed his cold hand. Her big brown eyes looked into his. She smiled and kissed his hand gently. The love between Garry and the villagers grew to be a tremendous love, nothing that Garry ever had. Garry knew it was time. He took one last look at each and every villager. Then with a large breath, he thought to himself, I am so lucky, and with that, Garry was gone. More happy tears were shed by the loving people surrounding him.
That night the village had another celebration. This time, they celebrated Garry’s life and how it ended in such a beautiful way. More singing and dancing filled the night.
Garry’s sad life had been completed with happiness because he decided to fulfill his dream and end his time with a full heart.
