Arrival, visit, departure.

The arrival of the unborn child for whom I have been praying for as long as ten years. Every visit to your home, I return religious, I go down on my knees and cry, for the miracle. Every drink you make me with love, I steady myself to not cry into it, maybe I should. The salt could dissolve the sorrow that gets stuck onto my mind like glue. I listen to every funny story you have to tell, mindful of the extra person I might be listening for, for the time being. The time being. I saw you cry for the first time when you heard she was pregnant, do you know how contagious your happiness is? The day I overheard my parent's conversation about how all the expectations of that day died, bleeding, unable to make an entrance to our lives still haunts me. I still pray, and sometimes in my dream I play with the lonely and charming boy that smiles at me from the corner of the room, resembling his father's handsome face and his mother's warm smile.
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Some of the people I meet share their sorrows with me and I borrow some part of the pain to keep me company on my journey. I find myself aching for the one who has lost his mother, the one who loves someone unconditionally, the one that is scared of the abstract idea of permanency of relationships, the one who feels nothing at all. It hurts me to see you feel it all alone, it must have broken you. The efforts to make sure my loved ones never feel anything as cruel as absolute sadness, gets lost in my restlessness. All your sorrows takes a peak into the indifference I am practicing. And here I am, being your mother, being the one that loves you back, being the one that promises to stay, being the one that smiles at you kindly, in a story.
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His name was not a frequent visitor in our home but when it does visit, it was followed by a sequence of good-old times, funny stories, warm flashback and limitless measurement of a big heart. My mother still roars with laughter at how he stole a bunch of flowers for her garden from a resort even though the security clearly advised us not to. His was the only welcoming face I'd see when I visit his hometown, the reassurance that he'd take care of everything on the promise that I'd enjoy myself a lot. I have never been a huge fan of nicknames, and yet I found myself giggling for the names he had given for me, Ryan and Liya, on the day we left. The absurdity of love and concern he gave for someone he'd just met took me aback. In a world of materialistic love , I am glad I met someone so pure like him. The news of his death, undoubtedly, shocked me but I didn't cry. I knew he'd always live on and I'd make sure he was remembered. On the phone call with my mother, she said the flowers were blooming so beautifully. She even replanted some more if it near the tree that was the first few members of her garden. And there he was living, in the shade of our stories and memories.








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