Steemit Challenge s28wk2 : Remembering Through Healing

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Every night after everyone has gone to bed, Tina would sit in the living room letting the silence and darkness settle around her. The silence was very loud and she feels like even the paints on the walls had some conversations trapped behind them and she always had this same question tightening her in her chest.

Why did I stay away for so long? She would always ask herself especially because this same house reminded her of her happiest and precious moments with her mother.

Their late night cookings, the laughter they shared over burnt cookies and the soft humming of her mum as she braids her hair on quiet Saturday evenings. They talked about everything and anything but somehow she had allowed distance to swallow all of those precious moments.

One of those her lonely night, her Father unexpectedly joined her on the couch. He’s eyes were sunken and heavy, he looked like grief and scooped some part of him away.

You are awake again, he said.
“I can’t sleep” Tina replied.

Every room here reminds me of the fact that I was not here when she needed me the most and other fact that I missed the only place I ever really felt belonged.

Your mum didn’t see you that way but I do she said her voice quivering. Her dad kept silent and that made her heart hurt even more.

The next morning while Tina was cleaning the attic, she found a small box with a ribbon
tied to it and her name writing on the cover with her mum’s handwriting. Her heart raced and she was contemplating what could be in the small box with the faded tied ribbon.

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Inside the box were letters written by her mum addressed to her at different stages of her life…

Tina at ten
Tina as sixteen
Tina when she leaves home
Tina when she feels lost etc. with shaking hands she opened the one that says Tina when she feels lost cos that was how she was feeling at the moment. Lost, oblivious of what next.

Her mum’s writing stared at her softly as she read

“You will think I do not understand you, you may get angry, we may argue and you will leave home. I understand you need your space to grow but you will come home when you need to heal. When that day eventually comes and you come home, do not punish yourself, even if I am not there, do come back to me.”

These words stabbed her like a sharp knife, her knees were weak from grief as she sat on the floor of the arctic tears streaking down her face.

She later showed the letters to her brother Nathan. Oh my world “she knew you all along, all of you.” He said. She knew me more than I know myself, Tina said.

One day after the other Tina read the letter. Some made her laugh, some made her cry while some brought back the memories she shared with her mum and also the bad times when she got angry and stomped out as against meaningful conversations. Some brought her good memories of the time her mum had been there for her during her first heart break and how she also cheered her during her school games.

For every letter she read, she felt the guilt lifting, her ache softening and the silence fading away.

Would you read a letter for me her Father asked one day and she read for him the letter that says “When your father feels alone”

In her mothers hand writing it read
“When he feels alone, please sit with him cos he would pretend he is fine but is not. Even in silence sit with him cos he understands love through presence more than words”

A slight sob escaped his mouth as he placed a hand over his mouth. Tina went over and sat with her father and her brother Nathan came over too. They hugged each other in a tight embrace and for the first time in months since Tina’s return as they shared in each others warmth. Just like it used to be when her mother was around. She had just the right healing balm for each other them up inside a box of remembrance.