I like to think I am in possession of a certain coveted ability.
At first, I thought it to be more of a burden. Lingering whispers and shadows that danced in the doorways of any building I entered. I saw visions that others insisted weren’t there and heard voices that only graced my own eardrums.
When I was only a child, I used to cower beneath my bed sheets, yearning, pleading for the voices to go away, to leave me to the thoughts swimming around in my head. The ghostly whispers wouldn’t relent, of course. They seemed to take a sadistic joy in tormenting me, making me suffer in life just as they do eternally in death.
Years have passed, and I’ve grown away from the ability. I wouldn’t say it lies dormant within me. Rather, I’ve taught myself to tune it out, to grow away from the voices that heed from the other side of mortality. I simply couldn’t have something so trivial hindering me from my life’s goals. It took time and even more effort, but in the end, it’s proven as nothing more than an afterthought.
Until, a few nights ago, my mother passed away unexpectedly.
In a way, I blame myself. It’s silly, I know. She called me the same morning she passed, insisted we get together and catch up on lost time—years that have passed in what feels like mere months. I’ve become engrossed in my career, my growth in the company, and transcending the parameters my initial living situation had given me. I vowed never to return to the way I once lived, a mere shadow, a stain on the wall. I’ve done well for myself, I like to think. In the moments I took to spend time with my mother, she only ever had praise to share with me.
Perhaps if we had more time she might’ve told me about the diagnosis, told me the sickness was eating away at her skin and bones until there was nothing left but a memory of her. If I’d made an effort, done more, been more, I wouldn’t even be thinking this.
I sat beside that hospital bed disgusted with myself, disappointed to ever have called myself a daughter of a woman so wonderful.
I bide my time at first. I delay telling anyone of her passing, denying that she’s even gone to begin with. It’s such a surreal thing: death. The feeling isn’t something that can ever be explained. It’s as though a part of yourself has gone missing. You can find it just on the horizon, chasing the sun’s warmth in endless cycles. But the moon will always rise, the sun will set, and the cycle will persist forevermore.
Tonight I lie awake, memories of my mother swimming around my mind like a fish out of water. There’s so much to remember, so much to be grateful for. Yet, I spent my time lusting over status and a paycheck.
Her voice is clear in my mind, almost as though she’s actually speaking with me. I hear my name fall from her lips like a river of honey. A warmth rushes through my chest. I feel at home again—not this apartment I’ve lived in since taking my first important job—but the home I called mine for years on end. The same one my mother never abandoned no matter how difficult things became for us.
And yet, I so easily did such an awful thing to her, despite her loyalty.
I remember my bedroom, and the memory is like I never left. There is a scent I cannot describe, but it reminds me of everything I’ve ever grown apart from. I can picture my bed piled high with stuffed animals, sheets so pink they served as more of an eyesore than anything.
And I can see her, the figure of her, standing perfectly before me as though I never left. There’s a face of rest upon her features. She was a woman who never wore her emotions upon her sleeve. While I always knew my mother loved me, she never seemed to outwardly show it, displacing her affections into other aspects of her parenting. I learned to accept this, learned to accept nothing more than what she offered—there was never any hope yearning for more.
A tear falls from my face. It’s warm, burning the way my heart beats for the memory of my mother.
“Fix your face,” I can already hear her saying to me. It came off as malicious, but she never intended it to be received that way. “You’re strong. Don’t cry.” She’s always expected more from her only daughter, raising me to be a paragon of intelligence, diligence.
It takes me longer than I would’ve initially thought to connect the dots so haphazardly placed at my feet. The image of her, the voice that rings true, and the scents I can’t seem to shake from invading my nostrils.
Before me in all her glory stands my mother. She’s almost the same as I left her: Wrinkles trace the smiles from her eyes down to the area surrounding her lips, hair sprinkled with grey and posture stretching towards the ground further than I last remember. Despite this, it’s still her, still my mother.
I don’t speak immediately. I allow the realization to hang in the air between us. When I do speak, it’s the only words on my mind. “I’m so sorry, Mom. If only I’d—” She raises a hand, urging me to pause.
“There’s no need to apologize.”
“Are you kidding? I’m a sorry excuse for a daughter, a shitty person. How can you stand there and look at me like I’ve done nothing wrong, as though this doesn’t matter!”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Well… it does to me!”
My mother doesn’t respond to my words for a moment. I think maybe she’s taking the hint, finally coming to terms with the fact that I’m truly a terrible person. There’s no way she could ever forgive me. It doesn’t matter if I’m her daughter, it doesn’t matter that the truth falling from her lips will undoubtedly ruin me.
I look upon her, and all I see are memories. Emotions come flooding forth, a broken damn of shattered dreams and unfulfilled promises. I can’t help the tears. I don’t care if she reprimands me; I deserve it.
Finally, she speaks.
“There’s nothing in this world you could ever do that would make me despise you. Nothing you can say will prove to me you’re the terrible person you see in the mirror.” My eyes fill to the brim with tears.
I gaze upon the deceased image of my mother like she’s grown a second head, like she isn’t standing here before me from beyond the grave itself. This ability I once regarded as a curse is truly a gift, a second chance to make right everything I’ve ever done wrong in this life. This is what it’s always been meant to do: Restore balance where it has been lost.
“I love you,” my mother says. “I loved you in life, and I will love you eternally in death. I promise that will never change.”
I don’t deserve this. I don’t think I do, anyways. But if my mother is so willing to simply forgive me, to look beyond my apathy, and bestow me with her undying love, then who am I to administer misplaced judgement?
I don’t respond to her observation. I don’t agree with her, and I don’t think I ever will. But that doesn’t stop me from seizing the opportunity to spend time with her. We talk for a long while, catching up on years lost. I wish there was more for me to tell her, wish I could provide a final grand gesture to make her proud, but nothing comes to mind. I like it this way. It’s real, organic, like the love shared between us.
What feels like days passes us by, my mother finally reluctantly telling me it’s time for her to bid farewell and depart from this plane. I reach out to touch her, air beneath my fingertips. She’s only here in spirit, after all.
“Will you come back?” My voice is desperate as I ask what might very well be my final question.
She chuckles. Of course she does. “We’ll see each other again, that much I can promise.” There’s not much more to say after that. We bid one another a bittersweet farewell. I wish I could hug her a final time and whisper in her ear how sorry I am that this was how we said goodbye. I can tell she knows the intentions behind the tears in my eyes and quivering lip. My stomach churns as I watch her figure fade into nothingness, mere particles of dust left in her wake. I try to cup them in the palms of my hand to hold onto the final memory of her being here, but those, too, have faded.
Bryanna Bernice is a writer and aspiring author born and raised in the United States. From a young age she found a love of literature and story-telling, her dream to turn a lifelong passion into a career.
Featured image by Joe Yates on Unsplash.
