Obit_v1.docx by Andrew Cominelli

Ella XXXXX, age 10, of Medford, died passed away entered the next life passed away on November 9, 2005. Ella was the daughter beloved daughter of XXXXX and XXXXX XXXXX, and the sister cherished sister younger sister of XXXXX and XXXXX. Ella was born in Medford and lived her short entire life here. A bright student at Dixon Street School, she was very interested in involved in many activ after-school activities. She was the Wee Deliver mailperson for the Dixon’s entire fifth grade, she performed choreographed and performed a her own dance routine for the school’s annual talent show, and she served as a Mini Mentor reading instructor for second graders. A gymn Level 7 gymnast at Polly’s Gymnastics School, Ella earnedwon a the silver medal in her age group at the S.C.W.S.W.C. Youth Championships. You should have seen her on the mat! What you really should have seen was Ella at age five, on a nature walk in Roosevelt Forest, coming across a small bird. The bird was dying一I don’t know what had happened to it, but its chest was ripped open, and we could see this whole network of moist bloody muscles and ligaments moving slowly stretching and relaxing with the bird’s labored last breaths. The bird was lying on its back and its chest its chest was torn thrown open like some sort of coat, like something had been eating its It was quite gruesome. You shouldve seen how distraught Ella got became at the sight of it. I wonder now could she see its beating heart beating. How can I describe how she frowned, how Ella frowned, how her little face fell how the suffering animal suffering caused her eyebrows to tense up and her face her little face to fall. Five years old. How she somehow knew empathy for a tiny dying creature. I tried to call her away from the bird. But it was like she didn’t hear me. She knelt down beside the bird and she whispered to the bird but when she tried reached to touch the bird I shouted ENOUGH I shouted and took her by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. Her knees were covered in dirt, and I patted off off the dirt and we kept walking, and I haven’t thought about this once not once ever since until right now. Ella, oh my god, Ella, if you can hear me tell me what you said to the bird. If I could only know what you said to that bird. Ella I am sorry mommy is so so so SO sorry but if you can hear me and tell me what you said so I can maybe feel like I can see you see a little piece of your soul and know you are okay wherever you are. Mommy knows you are watching her as sure as mommy knows she is sitting in the kitchen at the table in the house but what mommy really REALLY wants to know is what you said to the bird. If you could just tell mommy then All who knew her were touched forever touched by Ella’s beautiful, loving spirit. She was our angel. She was our miracle child our angel, and now She somehow packed a full life lifetime into her ten short years, and brought such joy to every single person who met her. She is here with us right now She will live on in the memories hearts of those who loved her forever and ever. She is survived by her parents and siblings; grandparents XXXXX and XXXXX XXXXX and XXXXX and XXXXXd XXXXX; and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. Services will be held Friends are invited to attend a Mass of Christian Burial on Monday at 10 a.m. in St. Mark’s Church at 34 Hawthorne Lane, Medford. Following the service, Ella will be internment will take pl

Biography: Andrew Cominelli is a fiction writer based in New Orleans, LA. He received the 2021 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s Faulkner-Wisdom prize for best novel-in-progress. His writing has appeared in Ruminate Magazine and the French Quarter Journal.

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