She woke up squinting at the bright sunshine of the July morning. She was the apple of everyone's eyes. She was innocent as a rose. She knew nothing of the world around her. And she also had no idea why so many guests came to her house.
She never remembered the presence of so many people in her house until today.
Where's mommy?She wondered...That was the first thought that popped into every kid's head including the 4 year old kid I am talking about right now.
She wandered everywhere to look for mommy. Where's mommy? She kept asking everyone who passed by. She realized nobody was ready to answer her. Though the house was filled with people..they seemed quiet and did not seem to talk much.
And some people seemed to cry.. Why??..she never knew.
Little did she know that a branch from the family tree has fallen and everyone were gathered together to bid final goodbye to their most beloved one..her own mother who was not suffering from person hood anymore and all her troubles in the mortal world ended before she could say a final goodbye to the angel of her life.
The girl was surrounded by grief and sadness at such a tender age where things like this seemed so alien to her. She didn't know she would never be able to see her mother again. She reached the living room and saw her mother's lifeless body. She wore a brown nightdress and looked pale. Everyone were gathered around her in a circle. The little girl was surrounded by the sound of cries where the loved one died. She wanted to wake her mother up and come play with her.
How could you explain death and loss to a 4 year old kid whose awareness of the world around her is so limited? Nobody can simply tell that her mommy won't play with her and on one fine day she's also going to meet the same end in one or the other way..
Death is such a painful truth but for how long this truth will be staying hidden? Why's mommy lying down? she asked innocently.
She's just sleeping..
The little girl has of course seen Tom and Jerry..Tom gets blown up..broken and falls off a cliff but still comes back as a whole only to get thrown up by Jerry again. Tom comes back like nothing happened. She believed her mom was just sleeping. And people who sleep obviously wake up after a while.So she waited for her mommy to wake up but how long can she wait?
She was so impatient from the beginning..a fussy eater..and gets freaked out all the time whenever her mommy is away from her. She was a spoiled brat who cries to get whatever she wants. Even when her mother was stuck in Dante's Purgatory..(Struggling for life and death in the hospital after a heart attack) all she wanted was coloring book and crayons. She was totally oblivious to the environment around her..but was it her fault? She was not supposed to care about anything. Childhood is all about happiness..fooling around..crying...eating..playing and finally sleeping in mother's lap at night without worrying about anything especially the permanence and inevitability of death.
She finally lost her patience and joined the crowd of grief stricken people.
"Mommy is just sleeping and I am also going to sleep with her" were her words..she went forward and lied down next to her. A man in his mid 40's immediately lifted her up and was taken to her bedroom.
You stay here for a while till your mother comes..he said and left..as if she was going to be resurrected from the dead. The poor thing who knew literally nothing began playing with her toys innocently whereas outside in the living room..her mother's corpse was being taken to the cremation ground to perform her last rites. That was the last time she saw her mother.. This was the hardest goodbye ever because it was never said and never explained.
Maybe her mother was not completely dead. Disease and death might have taken her away physically but her soul and legacy lived in the angel she gave birth to..to live in the heart she left behind is not exactly dying. She was loved by her daughter and her family dearly both in life and death she still continues to live because nobody has stopped loving her and nobody has
forgotten her..she is alive in each everyone of her loved ones' hearts.
There will come a time when the little girl will not believe lies like her mother has gone somewhere far away and will come soon to play with her.
After waiting for 3 long years..she finally asked Where's Mommy??
Obviously they didn't know how to tell the truth..but sugar coating the painful truth sounded better
She's with God....
Alaska Spencer
Guidelines for the competition : https://www.fanatixxpublication.com/write-o-mania-2023
