The One You Once Were

Why do they grow up so fast?

The tricky thing about life is that it goes on even though something horrible has happened. But even though it does, we're undoubtedly changed by what we've witnessed.
After Heather had passed, we buried her in the yard. The house was quiet for a while and Klaus left soon after, giving me a long and heartfelt kiss as a goodbye. And then, we just kept living. Day after day. Eventually, we found some kind of normalcy if you could even call it that. Ellie took over most of the chores, Dalia fixed the furniture whenever Aidan had another outbreak. Those happened less and less though since his father had focused more on teaching him how to deal with his anger rather than let the emotion take hold of him. Caleb started walking while Thorn watched his every move to ensure the little guy's safety. In summery, the kids grew, each in their own way, into adults. It was weird to watch. I'd known them since they were babies and now, they were all slowly getting ready to leave the nest.
You noticed it in their patterns of speech too. They tryed finding a balance between listening and taking in what Kilian and I were telling them about but also gave contra when they found it appropriate to do so. What I had found to be difficult when dealing with Ellie's teenage phase, I was now kind of missing from the other teens. Every time they did snap at us, I was happy to see them be normal teens for once and not grown-ups yet. Even though it could be tough to deal with, it was important for them to have those experiences for a healthy development.
On the day Caleb formed his first sentence, I overheard Eric and Kilian talk about marriage. By now, Eric had been entrusted with the secret about magic, however he was still in the dark when it came to the entire truth about me. The family had decided to tell him once Ellie and Eric were really married.
It would be a small ceremony with only the families present, yet there was a lot to take care of. I volunteered to organize everything since I was in need of something to take my mind off things. I was devastated when I found out about a tradition where the bride wore a bridal crown given to her by her mother and ancestors before her. How I wished that Heather could have given the crown to Ellie herself.
Other traditions weren't as important to the family as they normally would have been because as witches they were exceptionally picky about what to believe in or not. Thus, Dalia created the wedding rings herself and we performed no other rituals prior to the wedding which was scheduled for friday in two weeks. It was stressful but also something we all looked forward to, the kids especially seemed to hold on to that for their sanity and ease of mind. Ellie stayed up until way after dawn because she insisted on sewing her own wedding dress. I sometimes cought her at night when I returned home from checking if there were new vampires in the region. Her sketches were beautiful and she'd searched for the prettiest fabric in town to make her vision a reality. I almost envied her strength of pulling through all this after her mother's death but when I brought it up, she didn't want to hear anything about it. Three days before the main event, she waited for me to return home, which was surprising since she had already finished her dress.
"Hun, what are you doing up?", I asked as quiet as possible to not wake anyone else. "You should be resting and saving your strength."
She looked at me with big, sparkly eyes as if there was something important that she needed to know.
"I had to catch you alone.", she started speaking softly. "Traditionally, mother would have braided and styled my hair on my wedding day."
Immediately, I softened my gaze and sympathy made its way onto my face.
"Don't look at me like that.", Ellie shook her head. "I want to ask you to do it instead. I know mother would have wanted you to."
Speechless, I just flashed over to her and pulled her into my arms. This girl had been part of my heart since she was born and now she was asking me to do her hair on her wedding day. How did she grow up in what seemed like the blink of an eye. I let go of her and cupped her face with my hands as gently as I could.
"Of course I will.", I told her, holding back tears. There wasn't any specific reason why I felt like crying but I suddenly understood why my mother had been so emotional when we talked about me going to college. All that seemed far away now but would be part of my life again one day. Ellie would have loved college but unfortunately, it wasn't the century for that.
"Really?", she smiled brightly. "I have some ideas that would go with the dress and if you could do that, it would be wonderful."
"Yes, honey, I will definitely do it. Anything to make it one of the best days of your life!"