The Strength of Us

Chapter 1

I laid in her arms, covered in the strong embrace of her warmth. Her deep brown eyes reflected my own, the storm outside raged, she didn't waver. Her uniform crinkled as I moved adjusting to her drifting off to sleep. 

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I sat huddled in the car wrapped in a blanket. As she bent down to kiss my head. A solemn smile across her pale face. Her long black locks pilled neatly into a tight bun on her head. The scar across her lip stood out against the other imperfections on her face. I cared not for how she looked, but how she looked at me. Embracing me tightly as if it could be the last time and I did the same because it might've been. She reluctantly released me from her hold before she picked up her bags I asked in all innocence.

"Why must you leave mom?..." And she answered me earnestly.

"To protect this country for you and the future." I threw my arms around her shoulders, all my pent-up anger, and sadness spilling out in giant tears. Damping her perfect uniform. I could feel my own shirt starting to become wet and cold with my mother's tears. It took a while before we had released one another. My mom picked up her heavy bags and waved good-bye to me and my papa until I could no longer see her as she disappeared within the airport. How long..would I wait to see her again?

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It had been years but I was now in the same spot she was taken from me. I watched as she emerged from the airport with messy hair and new scars. I didn't care, I flung the car door open and ran to her hugging her as tightly as possible to make sure it was truly her. To make she was truly here in this moment and I wasn't dreaming as I had been. She had returned to me physically unscathed, but not mentally. She'd wake up in the middle of the night, panting, and crying. Soe nights she would not even fall asleep but still would hold me in her arms and rock me to sleep to comfort me. And one day I asked what she had seen. She closed her eyes and began to describe it. She rode in the humbee, crossing the streets as explosions went off in every direction, parents ran to their children in despair holding their bodies close as the light faded from their eyes. She had looked into the eyes of her soldiers and watched the light fade from theirs scarring her heart and her mental state. She told me that wasn't what scared her most. She feared that one of those kids was me....and for that moment we hugged and cried together she was support and my strength I never wanted to leave this warmth, my strength, my one and only mother who had survived a war and returned to me.