I didn't know why I felt I had to do this tonight. An impulse was the only answer I could give myself, and even that felt empty. True, Old Life's Day was supposed to be the one night this could happen and this was the only place I had ever heard that had this ritual, but she had died fifteen years ago. Shouldn't I have been done mourning by now?
Distantly I could hear the bells tolling the midnight hour. The singing in the main part of the cemetery near the temple rose to a crescendo before dying away. I sighed as nothing happened. This had been a waste of time.
When I started to stand and try to work the kinks out of my sleeping feet, I heard her voice behind me.
"Rosa Faust?" my mother said. I hadn't heard her in literal lifetimes and still my heart stopped when I heard her again. "My little rose?"
A tear slid down my cheek unexpectedly. I had thought I was prepared for this, but I supposed in the end I was not. I closed my mouth with a hard click of my teeth so I didn't look like a fool as I turned to face the specter of my mother.
She looked better in death with her ethereal glow than how I last remembered her in life. She had been wasting away from disease, one that should have been easily prevented or even treated if she had simply done what the healers had told her to do. Instead she had ran from the fear of the disease, trying to ignore it as it ate her alive.
I had been seventeen and had not able to deal with her constant medical needs or her begging for me to marry and bear a grandchild before she died. I had left one night and traveled to the capital where I enrolled in the army under a false name. I wanted to live my own life, not hers. She hadn't even tried to make me live the life she could have had. Instead she had wanted me to make the same choices she had lamented since I was born.
"Momma!" I wept as I threw my arms open and ran to her. I was five again and we were happy together instead of the later years when I avoided her during the worst times of her bitterness and skooma addiction.
I was afraid she would be incorporeal and I would pass through her, but thankfully she was as solid as I remembered and I hugged her as hard as I could as if to prove she was real. At least real enough for now.
"Why are you crying, dear heart?" she asked as she smoothing my hair from my forehead. Her arms around me made me feel safe and loved. I had missed that so much and I hadn't even realized it until she was there again.
"I left you," I sobbed. It was hard to get the words out between my wails, I was crying so hard, but it was important to say it. I had been waiting fifteen years to say it. "I left you to die and I didn't even come home for the funeral although I should have, but I just couldn't because I didn't want to face you. You were dead and I should have been there for you instead of fleeing to the army."
Momma didn't answer. Instead she continued to make comforting noises as she held me until I calmed down. "I"m sorry," I cried over and over. "I'm so sorry."
"You were there for me more times than I could count," Momma told me gently. "You held my hair from my face when I was sick, you cleaned up after my messes, you fed me." She tilted my face so I was looking at her. "I should have done those things for you. I was your mother and I should have acted like it. Instead I called you horrible names and accused you of not caring when all you had ever done was love me."
She wiped the tears from my cheeks, leaving a cool trail from her touch. "There was something broken in me and I never did anything to fix it. I was never the mother I should have been for you because I was afraid. I was afraid of losing you. In the end, I did all the things I could to push you away so I wouldn't feel hurt when you did leave."
Silence enveloped us as I took in her words. I had come here tonight to apologize for failing her. I had never imagined she would want to say the same thing to me.
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timeasmymeasure
Old Life Festival 3/4
Date: 2013-12-21 05:33 pm (UTC)I didn't know why I felt I had to do this tonight. An impulse was the only answer I could give myself, and even that felt empty. True, Old Life's Day was supposed to be the one night this could happen and this was the only place I had ever heard that had this ritual, but she had died fifteen years ago. Shouldn't I have been done mourning by now?
Distantly I could hear the bells tolling the midnight hour. The singing in the main part of the cemetery near the temple rose to a crescendo before dying away. I sighed as nothing happened. This had been a waste of time.
When I started to stand and try to work the kinks out of my sleeping feet, I heard her voice behind me.
"Rosa Faust?" my mother said. I hadn't heard her in literal lifetimes and still my heart stopped when I heard her again. "My little rose?"
A tear slid down my cheek unexpectedly. I had thought I was prepared for this, but I supposed in the end I was not. I closed my mouth with a hard click of my teeth so I didn't look like a fool as I turned to face the specter of my mother.
She looked better in death with her ethereal glow than how I last remembered her in life. She had been wasting away from disease, one that should have been easily prevented or even treated if she had simply done what the healers had told her to do. Instead she had ran from the fear of the disease, trying to ignore it as it ate her alive.
I had been seventeen and had not able to deal with her constant medical needs or her begging for me to marry and bear a grandchild before she died. I had left one night and traveled to the capital where I enrolled in the army under a false name. I wanted to live my own life, not hers. She hadn't even tried to make me live the life she could have had. Instead she had wanted me to make the same choices she had lamented since I was born.
"Momma!" I wept as I threw my arms open and ran to her. I was five again and we were happy together instead of the later years when I avoided her during the worst times of her bitterness and skooma addiction.
I was afraid she would be incorporeal and I would pass through her, but thankfully she was as solid as I remembered and I hugged her as hard as I could as if to prove she was real. At least real enough for now.
"Why are you crying, dear heart?" she asked as she smoothing my hair from my forehead. Her arms around me made me feel safe and loved. I had missed that so much and I hadn't even realized it until she was there again.
"I left you," I sobbed. It was hard to get the words out between my wails, I was crying so hard, but it was important to say it. I had been waiting fifteen years to say it. "I left you to die and I didn't even come home for the funeral although I should have, but I just couldn't because I didn't want to face you. You were dead and I should have been there for you instead of fleeing to the army."
Momma didn't answer. Instead she continued to make comforting noises as she held me until I calmed down. "I"m sorry," I cried over and over. "I'm so sorry."
"You were there for me more times than I could count," Momma told me gently. "You held my hair from my face when I was sick, you cleaned up after my messes, you fed me." She tilted my face so I was looking at her. "I should have done those things for you. I was your mother and I should have acted like it. Instead I called you horrible names and accused you of not caring when all you had ever done was love me."
She wiped the tears from my cheeks, leaving a cool trail from her touch. "There was something broken in me and I never did anything to fix it. I was never the mother I should have been for you because I was afraid. I was afraid of losing you. In the end, I did all the things I could to push you away so I wouldn't feel hurt when you did leave."
Silence enveloped us as I took in her words. I had come here tonight to apologize for failing her. I had never imagined she would want to say the same thing to me.