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Sometimes I wish I lived in a story.
I know stories hold great tragedies, that characters on a page are far from protected from strife, but at least those tragedies have meaning.
Mothers die for their children,
To bring down a corrupt regime,
To save the world—
And they leave behind a legacy.
One last conversation
Letters to their loved ones
Something to ease the pain.
Sometimes their children can go on epic quests to revive them
Point a sword at some monster or demon and snarl until it gives their mother back
Bear her home, bleeding but triumphant, to cheering crowds and embraces.
Sometimes they can't save her, but they can honour her
A garden is planted, her last words emblazoned on the wall
A war is won
Or great deeds are accomplished in her name
So everyone knows it
So everyone knows her
So she can never be forgotten.
In real life, people die for no narrative reason at all.
They collapse on the floor and are not found for days.
A quirk of biology—
There one moment and gone the next.
(How long is a moment? I will never know
I am told it was short
I am told it was painless
I try to tell myself I am lucky)
I will never know the day my mother died.
Her last words, or her last thoughts.
I can undergo no great journey to bring her back
And no matter how tightly I hold on, her memory fades a little every day.
(What is real? How many times do you remember a memory until it changes unrecognisably?)
She was a woman.
A person, with thoughts and goals and a future
Now she is reduced to relationships and belongings.
She was a mother, a wife, a friend, but so much more that I will never know
And no matter how many objects of hers I strew across my house
No matter that part of her sits on my shelf—
(We paid strangers to burn her, to grind her bones like some twisted giant, and I don't think I will ever stop finding that horrible)
—No matter what of hers I have, I can form no summoning circle to bring her back.
She left no grand meaning for me to dedicate my life to.
I am no gardener or warrior.
She left only shoes
Photographs of people unknown
Craft supplies that will never become what she envisioned
She left potential that will never be realised
She left questions
Regrets
A hole
She left me
And she did not say goodbye.