A Mother's Love
Page 32
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“Oh, how I miss those days with such simple thoughts and worries. How I wish they could have lasted longer than they did. If only we all had one more year together, one more month even. What I would not give to have had that. I wonder, if we had been given just a little more time, would things have turned out differently. Would I have known better than to say those words I did? I should have married him earlier; then we could have had Merek all the sooner. Although I would be younger and stupider, at least we would have had more time together. And perhaps in that time I could have learned more than I did and have spoken better, wiser words.”
I chuckled, “What am I doing, saying these things to myself when it makes no difference now? What is done is done. I cannot change the past.” Rolling on my side, I listened to the night’s sounds as they came through my window. The chirping of crickets, the rustling of creatures in the bush, the clanging of guards about on duty making their patrols: all the noises hummed together in some disorganized symphony.
Again, I remembered my own mother’s words, “Love, patience, and above all else faith.” If only I had thought as deeply on them back then as I did now.
Then again, I only think so deeply of them now due to my failure back then. “Yes,” I spoke softly aloud to myself, “Truly they are essential to the most complicated of the naturally simplistic inclinations of women. Motherhood, what a beautifully complicated simplicity.”
The first aspect is love. It is something you always have in your heart. It is something you cannot push away. It can grow weaker and stronger, but it cannot truly disappear.
I know it is my duty, as his mother, to love Merek, but it is so difficult when he can be so horribly cruel. And though I think I shall always love him, I do not think the presence of love can hide the hate in my heart. “What a horrible, ghastly thought!” I shivered at my own horridness. “I want to love him, but I despise the very thought of loving such a man!”
I suppose that leads to the second natural tendency, patience.
Patience. I like to think I had this with Merek, but I wonder if perhaps I confused it with tolerance. I tolerate his evil works. I am not patient of them. No, that is not quite right. I had patience. I still have it, but perhaps I have too much. I keep waiting and praying, with all my patience, for him to change. I spoke kind words to change him, but they all failed. I then spoke harshly, but those words too were to no avail. And when I do not speak at all— well, here I am, in a prison waiting to be executed. I am condemned by my own son. “What a joke of a mother I am. My patience has given me nothing but despair and death!” Quieting myself as voices passed under me, I folded my hands together. When the voices faded, I looked to the darkness where my hands should be. Feeling them tremble, I nodded, “Yes, this is where I failed most.”
Prayer is what should bind people together, and even more so a family, but I failed at those things. I preached at him to seek God and forgiveness, to have the virtues of patience and love, to be kind and understand that there is someone out there who will care for him no matter how bleak the circumstances may be. I had hoped that when he went to war, he would pray, just as I had taught him. I hoped he would pray. I hoped he would see God and all His glory while in the horrors of war and by God’s strength make it through. But, though he did make it through, his intentions got lost on the way home. Looking to me, instead of what he really should have been focusing on. And then, after everything, he now only looks to himself. He fell into becoming a selfish man, as he somehow picked out from my words that being so would make him strong. I do not see how he came to such radical conclusions about life, but I suppose it is my fault for not having been clearer with him.
I myself was not completely sure of all things at the time. I am still not quite sure of what is right or wrong. I was even less sure then. I was young and inexperienced. I know I cannot use that excuse forever, but it is the truth. I myself was and still am on a journey through life. All I wanted was for him to see that he too must begin a journey to find his own way to happiness. But I guess I was a fool… I should have just told him outright what was good and bad, righteous and unjust. I should have taught him more of the meaning of love and God. And I should have…
Sighing deeply to myself, the moon, which must have been previously hidden by the clouds, shone through the little window to light the tiny room. “How I wish I knew the words to say.” But I did not, I do not. And if I ever find them, it will have been too late for their meaning to have any effect on him.
At the end of these sad thoughts, I slowly begin to drift off into the oblivion of sleep, but before I can— a rapping came at my door.
The hurried knocking was matched with a quick lisped voice, “If you want to live, tell me the whereabouts of the key.”
“Who are you?” I leaned in close to the door, trying to recognize the familiar shaking voice.
“That doesn’t matter! Just tell me quickly! Hurry! We’ve not much time!”
“Merek is the only one I know to have it,” I replied sleepily.
Cursing, I heard him kick the side of the stone walls. “I figured as much. Still there has to be another key, an emergency one which only he would know about. But where?” moving about in the hallway, strange tappings and grunts and kicks came from the man in the corridor. As I leaned in closer to try and figure to whom exactly the voice belonged, the thickness of the wooden door and the solid blocks of stone, hindered my efforts. They muffled his voice too much for me to tell.
With his fists banging against the door, he spoke quickly, “I will come back two nights from now. It is the last night before that day. I will definitely have a key by then.”
“How? And why are you helping me?”
I have no friends in the palace. Who could be helping me?
“All will be revealed in time, my lady, and you will have your just freedom.”
“Yes, but please, why are you helping me?” I pressed my head desperately against the wooden door. I know this voice. I know that I do, but who, who is he?
“Soon, soon, my lady! I have no time at the moment. Goodbye until then. Do not fret, I will save you.” His feet shuffled quickly down the hall, and the door at the end shut ever so quietly.
“Goodbye, my mysterious savior, whoever you may be. Though I know you do not hear me, I must still speak. Please, do not try to save me for-” Turning to the window as shouts and cries came from it, I breathed solemnly, “-you will undoubtedly fail.” The voice of the man who had stood moments ago outside my little cage rang through the air. “Oh, why do so many suffer for me? Me, who has done nothing of consequence in this life but bring a monster into the world.”
When the voices and shouting ceased, I pulled the single chair up to the window. It was a useless effort, I could only see straight ahead. Even with the chair, the window was so high up and small that I could only peer straight out, and there was nothing to see.
In defeat, I crawled back into the bed, folding my hands in hope that perhaps my prayers might reach the man who was most likely already long departed. I tried my best to keep my hope though. “He will come again. He will. He will. He must!”
Trembling at the horrible thoughts that soon began to plague my mind, I used all my strength to push their overbearing reality away.
“He must come tomorrow, lest I know the truth of his fate.”
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