Aeternus, Eternus

I don't remember.

Here I am, tears running down my cheeks.

And I don't remember.

Mommy?

I don't remember telling her how much I loved her.

Mommy...died.

I remember hugging her, the night before I left...she left...

It was precisely 8pm when I stepped out of the ward that night.

I only hugged her.

I thought I would see her again tomorrow.

Then, I woke, tears streaming down my face, at 7.25 the next morning.

I dreamt that Mommy left me.

I heard the phone ring in the hall. My cousin woke to pick it up.

I lay, eyes still shut, face wet with tears.

I heard voices. I was curious.

I crawled out, clutching my pillow, out through the half-open door.

The floor was cold. My cousin was knelt next to the phone.

It was 7.40 on the clock, but I knew that it was 5 minutes ahead.

I don't remember clearly how it happened after that.

Only that shortly afterwards, I was told that mom had died.

I sat at the edge of the bed, shocked, my cousin's arm around me.

And I cried.

Sobbed my heart out, tears running like a waterfall, whatever have you.

I cried like a child that morning, clad in my sleepwear in my cousin's room.

And then I stopped crying after that.

It was all a whirl afterwards. I was in a dress. People were rushing all around me.

Preparing for a funeral. Preparing god-knows-what.

I was a child, so nobody told me anything.

I sat. I stood. I was in a fucking dress.

But I never cried after that morning.

I was numb. I think, part of me couldn't believe that Mommy was gone...for good.

The funeral was very funeral-like. Except that I haven't been to many funerals.

Heck, I don't think I've ever BEEN to a funeral before that.

Cruel then, that the first I had to attend was my own mother's.

I saw it in a coffin. Mother's corpse.

It wasn't her. It couldn't be.

The Mommy I knew would never apply makeup that thickly or that hideously.

I didn't even know how to hate the person who'd made my mom look so...not-her.

I wasn't like a child who'd just lost a parent.

Children who'd just lost their mother shouldn't laugh and play at the funeral.

But I did. Did that make me a bad daughter?

I don't know. I don't know anymore.

I don't remember crying, grieving. Not as much as daddy did after that.

I cried openly only once, on that morning I heard the news.

I don't remember anything. I only remembered moving on.

To an empty house. Cold, dark, and empty.

I never had to open the gate on my own before to come home.

The inside of the house was dark, lifeless.

The lights had to be switched on. Not that it made it any better.

I moved on. Or so I thought.

Plowed along stoically. Watched stupidly as dad cried and grieved and drowned his sorrows in alcohol.

Do you know how disturbing it is to watch a grown man cry while doing the laundry?

Come to think of it, when did I cry during those darker times?

Certainly not in front of anyone else.

I stopped crying for grief's sake. If I cried, it was for theaterical purposes, to suit my own ends.

Acting vulnerable to all those stupid adults certainly got sympathy for me.

And crying, even for selfish reasons in front of an audience, helped in its own little way.

I cried more when I grew into puberty. Damn hormones.

But I never grieved, at least not as openly as my father had had.

I settled for wistful looks into some distance only I could see, the angst and broodiness that just took over my whole self.

I never really grieved for my mother. I grieved for myself.

And now I'm sitting here, trying my damndest to remember.

I never wanted to remember before. It was too painful to remember.

After all, it is most painful, to remember past happiness in present sorrow.

Have I ever seriously told my mother how much I loved her?

I try and I try. But...nothing. I can't remember a scrap.

Random pieces of happiness...but I can't remember telling my mother how much I loved her.

For once, I truly wanted to remember.

Because I don't want to know that in all my years, I had never told my mother how much I loved her.




Happy birthday Mom. You would have been 57 this year, had you lived. You missed your 50th birthday by 4 months, the year you died. I was only able to show you my midterm results a few days before you passed on. As usual, I had been first in class.

I am so sorry Mom. I've been such a useless wreck, a hopeless lump after you died. I know I shouldn't be blaming you now, that I should have been stronger and done you proud the way you would have wanted me too. I've failed you.

And all I want to do now, is just to cry. For myself, for you, I don't know. Only that I'm presently leaking snot and tears onto my keyboard, and its going to be a bitch to clean up later.

I am such a bad child. Such a foolish, immature child.

But for now, just let me be a child for a while longer. Let me hide in my room and cry some more. Let me be your daughter again, that 11-year old you left behind when you died on the 23rd of May, 1999.

I love you. I never said it before. But I really do.

Even if you couldn't possibly hear or see this, I need to say it. I love you mom. I really do.

Will you ever forgive me? For being such a spoiled child.

I love you mom. I'll never forget you.