Book Of Narratives

Family Sorrows

All that was heard in the room was the calmness of breaths in and out, the hems of my dresses pushing through the air creating wind circulating the room, as I pace from one side of the room to the other. The blaze of the fireplace crackles and splutters, as the cool air rushes through the gaps. I breath in and out to calm my nerves, worried I will hyperventilate, which would inevitably turn into a panic attack.

I shiver, yet it is not from the cold.

I am agitated. Anxious. Nervous even. I just want to know if things are going to be alright. I just want some assurance that nothing whatsoever terrible has happened. Yet, in my gut, I can sense that something is not right. It is just this feeling that all mothers get when something happens to one of their children, something that could potentially cause pain, suffering and conflict within families. I just know.

I stop pacing for a second, as I hear the closing of the front door, followed by the light thuds up the staircase, as Elijah has surely come back with news, important news, that will either settle my nerves or change our lives for the worse.

Walking over to my mahogany coloured oak dressing table, I take a seat on the small plush stool, and look at my reflection in the mirror. I rest my chin on my hand. My face; a once content and vibrant smile, laugh lines that told hundreds upon hundreds of jovial stories and memories, now is replaced with a dismal frown; face as shrivelled up as a prune, wrinkles replacing the laugh lines I once had, and an overall appearance of an unhappy woman going through a tough time as her only son is out at war.

My son. Ah, my son. Just turned sixteen, in oh about three months time this coming July, who was going to go to Oxford university, was going to become the greatest scientist of all time, solving scientific mysteries, his whole life was ahead of him. All that thrown away with war. A once patriotic gesture, now an inconvenience to my family and my son.

I am tired. I am tired of all this waiting. It is useless, just going about daily life; either knitting with friends and gossiping about our neighbours whereabouts or activities, just seems so pointless, as people, as men, as boys, are out fighting for our country, while we women sat idle in our houses, doing nothing but pointless chatter, about nothing particularly very interesting anyway.

Oh how I wish we could live differently, we women, not just being wives, not just being mothers, not just being there, being all quiet and reserved. Now, there is nothing wrong with being reserved, but I just wish that society was different. I just wish that women were given more chances at living more independently, without men hovering around us, scrutinising our every whereabouts, our every decisions.

But, there is no hope. Society will not change, not for awhile anyway. I do hope that one day we will be free to move about on our own, make decisions on our own, live on our own, be ourselves.

Oh, this is silly talk.

The door of my bedroom opens, and I look through the mirror, seeing Elijah stood, holding the door handle, a look of sadness on his face. I turn to face him, looking at his features closely. His grey blue eyes, the colour of pools of water, has a darkness to them; the shine in them gone. I frown slightly, and seeing the look on my face, Elijah lowers his head, almost as if in shame, or perhaps...regret. Regret, for what?

In that moment, I know. I know what the sullen, shameful, regretful look on his face is.

He is gone. My son, my Eli, is gone. Dead. I will never see his face again, I will never see his cheeky smile, or hear his laughter, nor will I feel his warmth as he hugs me. I will never see nor feel him around me, ever again.

And in that moment, I feel a part of me die, I feel a crushing in my heart, I feel the reality of his death sink in, taking over my emotions. Simply taking over, invading.

With the negative thoughts of his death, comes the negative feelings rushing through me.

I turn around and put my face in my hands, as a few tears escapes against my will. I attempted to remain calm before, but now, now I do not protest the floodgates opening up, allowing a dam of water to escape.

All you could hear was my wails and shrieks filling the room, my whole body shaking, trembling, rocking. I feel warm arms wrapping around me, embracing me, and I accept the comfort from my husband, turning to wrap my own arms around his torso. However, any comfort from Elijah is not enough, as nothing can give me comfort, other than the presence of my son, even though that will never happen.

From that moment, I am an empty shell of the past, nothing filling the empty void in my heart, as the thought of my son and his death, overwhelms me into an unconscious state, a state I do not want to come out of...

**
It sounds better if you imagine a British accent, because I am from England, if you can't already tell, so they are British. And this narrative is symbolic of the domestic effects of world war 1, when boys as young as 13 and 14 went to war. And her son, Eli, was 16, which is when he finished secondary school. Just to clarify things.

SHADOWS-OF-BLUE