New Beginnings
"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose."
- Lyndon B. Johnson
No one can choose their family. If we did, most of us don't remember it.
As a daughter, I have horrible luck with my mother. She was violent and unloving. I cried when she died, not because of losing her, but because I never got to hear her say "I love you" until the very end. As a mother, however, I get the best of luck. A loving, charming daughter who reminded me how much she loved me every day, thanking me for giving birth to her, thanking me for existing. Over the years, I learned to be grateful that I was alive to be with her. I don't know what great things I've done to deserve her, but she made my world complete. My daughter filled every void in my heart, who cried for my past, whom I can't live without.
On her wedding day, she shines brighter than a diamond, and for the first time, I asked her, "Have I been a good mother to you?"
A tear fell from her eyes as she embraced me. "You're a million better than I was to you. Thank you for loving me instead of getting revenge." I froze. What is she talking about? My beautiful daughter kissed my cheek. "I told you on my death bed, 'I'll return as your daughter, give me what you think I deserve.' " My daughter straightened up. In her wedding dress, I saw the familiar face of a woman who had beaten me with hatred and now gazed at me with the utmost affection. She smiled. "I love you."
She turned as her father stood on her other side. We walked her down the aisle with tears dropping like rain from my eyes.
"I love you," I told her before letting her go to her new beginning.
Parts of |Drafted Stories|