Before I die

Before I die
A lifetime before I die
I’d like to learn to fly
To a place beyond the tears
Away from all the fears
A year before I die
I’d like to learn to cry
From tears of happiness
No part played by sadness
A month before I die
I’d like to look at the sky
And regret days when it wasn’t blue
But more of a dark greyish hue
A day before I die
I’d like to take a sigh
One of relief and gladness
For I will depart this world of madness
A moment before I die
I’d like to take your hand and smile
As my imagination runs its final mile
Just before I die…
–
L.C.
This is a story of a woman who bore a child at the tender age of 16. Her beauty was that of an angel but the darkness had truly touched her soul. Every man she met would lust over her but none could ever truly love her. Her vanity and pride stood in the way of her finding true love and happiness.
The summer evening after her son had been born; she gently folded him in a blanket and cold-heartedly abandoned him on the side of the road. Never looking back twice to see what she was leaving behind, the woman continued with her impure life as if nothing had ever happened.
Ten years later, a dirty, tattered young man wreaking of dustbin odours knocked on her luxurious Victorian door. There was no mistaking the blue eyes that say on that face and the black her that was appeared to have been generously sprinkled onto his greasy scalp was a splitting image of his father’s.
With determination to repair their relationship, she allowed him to stay with her. All until she felt it was interfering with her ever-so-active love life. That is when her selfish ways pushed their way to the surface. She tossed him out once again, and this time for the last time.
As the guilt pecked at her over the years, her beauty began to fade and the darkness of her actions clouded her world. One night, the guilt she could no longer bear so she set off to find him only to return seven months later with no luck.
At her death bed, 41 years later, stood a middle aged man. Her son had returned to forgive his mother of her not so motherly actions and bid her farewell. She never found true love but she died knowing she had brought a soul much purer than her own into this world.
“Look at me Jonathan. I’m just a mere reflection of what a human shouldn’t be. All the mistakes I’ve made were only to fix what I thought was broken. You don’t understand. I would’ve been a terrible mother. If I had stayed, you would’ve hated me more than your little mind could ever imagine. I love you my dear boy but not more than I love myself. See, this is the one thing I truly admire about myself. I can be honest, honest about who I am. Pack your bags. You must go. I can no longer pretend I am prepared to be a mother to a child I barely even recognise. I’m still young. Men still adore me. What man would have me if word were to escape that I had a bastard child? Oh no! That I cannot bear…leave at once!”
“Frederick, I just chased my only son off into the woods. The only man who could probably ever love me the way I am…apart from you of course. He’s just a boy searching for the mother he never had. I lied. I do love him. He just deserves better. I’m not a suitable mother. I refuse to wreck what little childhood he has left. My brother, why are you looking at me like that? Have I made a mistake? He really is my son. I don’t believe it. I have to find him at once! Frederick, gather my things. Let me die with at least one honourable act in my name.”
“Jonathan! I found you. I finally found my son. I searched for you but you were gone. You just vanished into thin air. I never meant to hurt you. When I said I loved you but not enough, I lied. I love you twice as much as myself…even more when I deduct the parts of myself I really hate. I had to die knowing that one thing I touched didn’t turn into dust. Look at you my angel. You turned out better than you would have if I had stayed. I love you my darling. Dying in your arms was my wish to God and now it has c…”