Write a story with the title, ‘Home At Last’.
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Home At Last
The water fell over my body like the touch of a cool summer breeze. I felt cleansed as the water was dried and my wrinkled skin powdered. It felt like an out of body experience as I watched myself clothed and taken to the car. My sons helped me in, and then the car started in the midst of silent solace. The car wounded through the narrow streets and out of the city, I took one last look at my city-the very place that gave me all my joys and sorrows. My children wore their best dark suits, and in silence they watched the picturesque passing landscape. I looked at my youngest daughter for the first time in 22 years. The blue eyes that I used to wipe tears from now looked into some distant memory. The road wounded into the green familiarity of the past. I had left Dubbo with big dreams. My dream to live in the city started young, when I finally got the chance, I leaped without a thought. As a young girl I used to run along the dark streets of the country town, excited without reason. For then it had seemed that the bright world ringed the town around and that somewhere outside the darkness lay the mystery of life, and it felt as though I had only to run on, on past the town gates, on under the dark railway bridge, on a little way out the twisty road, and there I could reach the heart of the mystery. And I wished one day I could go. And so, one day I went. But I found no mystery, anywhere. Life was just the same in the town, in the city and in the twisty countryside. Life was the same in the darkness and the light. I am the same person that left all those years before, now just a little wrinkled. I noticed the very street that taught me to dream and face my fears. No one had expected my love of the city to take me away forever, even I expected to return. But my life took its own turns, not needing my consent. I wished I could slow this last ride and touch goodbye to my past. But time would not give me another chance. I turned to find the car had stopped and everyone sat in silence. I met my daughter’s blue eyes; now once again filled with salty tears. But this time I couldn’t wipe them dry. I had lived my life beyond everyone’s expectations, I wanted to tell my children that I forgave them for everything, but the bus which had lost control on the busy streets of Sydney had not taken into account my unfinished business. They finally got out of the car. The blue eyes were sparkling with a drop of tear; giving way to her brother’s she also helped take out my coffin. I was carried back into my childhood. I was home at last.