A Mother's Love

by Marian Unn

  *****

  Jobel was quiet again. The blank stare remained in his eyes, but he did not smile weakly as he once did. In fact, he showed even less signs of emotion. He was eating now, though, and that was good at least. However, my great fear was quickly coming to be. His light blue eyes were not only fading but darkening, darkening into a grayish blue, and growing closer to black by the day. I nearly fell to the floor each time I looked at him. What was becoming of my grandson? He had been so pure and innocent. Not that long ago he was running about with a smile. He was so curious and adventurous about the world. But now what was he? Covered in wounds and scars that would most likely never have any hope of healing, his eyes were becoming just as dark as Merek’s. He seemed to have lost the capability to be a child, of even smiling that smile of children, the smile of children which always brings a little of a child’s own special light into the dimness of the world. Such a simple and natural thing that smile was, yet he could not even do this.

  “Father,” I said. Sipping from the steaming mug in his hands, he peered over its rim and smiled, a natural response for him as I have now come to discover. “Yes, Rosetta?”

  “Did you know it was me all this time? Did you realize I was suffering so very greatly as I watched my son turn into what he is? And do you know that I now suffer again for being unable to do anything as my nephew thrives in pain, living poorly without his family? And though I know he has a new one, I still… Just knowing how he lives now is…” I trailed off but began soon again. “Do you know how seeing my grandson transform into his father haunts me? Terrifies me! Do you know what it is like, Father, to watch your children slowly stray away from the light, from themselves, from love and God and everything that is true? Do you know what it is to see the person you care about give up everything for absolutely nothing?!”

  “I do,” he responded quickly in a confident, yet sensitive, tone.

  “How?” My lips remained open, pleading for him to tell me something real, something true, to tell me anything, before I burst out crying that he knew nothing of the pain, of the hurt, of the love of one’s children and the hate of their actions and the sorrow that comes from it all. As these emotions swirl together into an unstoppable typhoon, how it soon becomes difficult to distinguish any of them for what they are. So mixed together and muddled as they become. How? How could he know such a thing? Such a deep pain that only a mother could feel!

  With a gentle smile he, turned his head toward Jobel. “My brother,” he spoke softly, his smile twitching on his face. “My brother was my dearest friend, and I was his role model. He watched me grow to adulthood. He witnessed my journey through life to become a priest, a short one admittedly, due to my family’s influence. However, he still saw the importance and value of the world through me, or at least I thought he did. But I suppose in truth he did not. I suppose he saw what I was doing, how I was living, and I think he knew… I think he knew everything I ever taught him, and I believe he willingly threw it all away.” Staring at his hands as he played with the splinters on the table, he scooted himself from it and paced back and forth between the window.

  “My brother was a gentle, kind boy, a smiling one who brought more laughs and joy to more people than I could ever hope to.” Bowing his head, he ceased to pace. “It is hard to believe that such a beautiful, idealistic soul was just a front. But I guess that is why God is the judge and not us.” He began to pace again. “He was very much filled with hope and life, filled so much that it appeared to overflow from him. So much so that whomever this hope touched was dramatically and undoubtedly influenced by him. I admit I was a tad jealous of his natural charisma,” Father Bart laughed painfully to himself. “But he was a good kid, and I felt so blessed to have him as my brother. Even when he joined the army, he was filled with more life and hope than all the sorrowful saps combined!” Once again he laughed in a low and mournfully toned voice.

  “My brother. He was the man who betrayed them.” His eyes met mine and that is when I realized it. “He betrayed the 315th?”

  He was that man. That friend. The man that Merek…

  “My brother was not threatened, nor was he tortured, but he was greedy. Horribly greedy. It was something that no one had recognized before. It was hidden deep inside, and it was nearly impossible to see from the outside. Even I, as close as I was, could not have seen him selling away all his beloved friends as he did.” He shivered from the memory. “When I learned what he had done, I was ashamed. And when I learned that he was killed, I felt pity. Pity was all I could feel for my own brother. He had done such an awful thing, and I don’t even know if he ever repented for it. I pray every day for his soul, and that by some chance he did. But I know, I know there is a strong possibility that he never repented for the horrible thing that he did. It pains me to think in such awful ways, but I feel that in such cases it is almost impossible not to.”

  “When I hear about all the things that happened to those soldiers, I can only see my brother.”

  I struggled to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. “You know that my son was good friends with him,” I spoke softly, gently and as calmly as my quivering voice could manage.

  “No!” he gazed at me, astonished by the fact.

  “Yes. Yes, he was,” I laughed. “They were good friends, like brothers he told me, very close indeed. And he died-”

  “I know that much,” Father said. “I know he was killed by the enemy. They turned back on their deal with him and slit his throat.”

  Such harsh and false words shook me. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come to me. I looked at the Father with big solemn eyes, then I shook my head. I have not the strength to reveal such a cruel truth, to acknowledge that my son is a murderer, was his murderer.

  “I guess,” Father blurted, his words rushing past my own thoughts, “I guess it is partially my brother’s fault the King is the way he is.” He stared at the floor. Although his lips twisted upwards in a weak smile, his eyes screamed in a terribly deep pain. “Yes, I suppose it was partially his fault.”

  “No!” my voice shook.

  “No?” His quizzical and anxious expression reached out to me. “Well,” I started, “Well, yes, but no. No, because you cannot- no that is not right- you should not blame yourself or your brother for what has become of my son. That is my own responsibility.” I trembled as I spoke. “You should care for your own, not mine, because my…mine…mine is the one who became a suppressive King, who lowered himself to deluding himself that people and emotions and attachments make him weak. It is mine who has done twice as many awful things, and it is mine who k¬” I choked on the word, “It was mine who killed your brother. Not the enemy, but my son.”

  Before he could respond, words slipped from my lips faster than I could think of them. They were my emotions pouring out without need for thought because I had felt them for so long. They had already formed their own words in my heart very long ago. “He was so vengeful, so filled with hate. I did not know how he died. Merek never told me. But I-I am responsible for Merek, so do not blame yourself for what both he and Merek have done. It is true Merek returned from war a different man than when he went, but his change was seen before it. He would tell me every single day that it was my words that made him who he is today. It is my words and no one else’s. The war, your brother, they were simply the last step before the inevitable, and I-”

  “You are not to blame either,” Father interrupted, his cool voice shaking the walls. “You should listen to your own words for once. You are not to blame either. It is as I told you before. Do you remember? We can only guide them. How they live and what choices they make are theirs and theirs alone. We cannot blame ourselves for what happens. And let me tell you...” His bright teeth sparkled with the sunlight which shined through the window. “God always has his own plans for them; we are only His servants. We serve as we do, but it is the Master who knows best, who knows what is good and what is right and what will be done w
ith all in the end. We’ve no control over life, and so we cannot blame ourselves for its blunders.”

  “I know, Father, I know.” Turning back to my grandson, I frowned at his blank stare, those cold blue eyes shaking when I whispered his name. “I know what you say is true, and yet I still cannot seem to forgive myself.” I draped my arms over Jobel, embracing him in the warm kind hug that only a mother can give. And though I knew it made no difference in his state, I like to think it warmed the heart of the little boy, who was curled up and lost inside of him.

  Return to TOC