My Valiant Protagonist

Mother says Father was a hero. Mother says that Father silenced crowds and joined nations, that his wisdom was a flower in a garden of thorns. Sometimes, when she is weary, she talks about him with sadness in her voice, the tone of someone who has a weight in their heart that can never be lifted.

My mother says that Father made the stars in the sky appear, and that he hushed the seas of their mighty waves, cleared lands of debris and replaced it with vegetation. When she is blissful, she is content with her memories in a way that proves she is in control of the weight in her heart, and I know that however rough the seas in her mind are, perhaps he can tame them too. There is a portrait that sits by her bed, watching her whilst she is in slumber, and the portrait has eyes the colour of harvest yield and a smile that helps her sleep. There is an angel that hovers over the mantel, its wings the colour of our walls, with a halo that it finds amusing, and I cannot see it, but mother always tells it about me. She says that I am growing up fast, and however the angel responds, it makes my mother smile. She tells it that I have curls as black as night, but that my eyes are golden like syrup, bringing light to every dark place she knows.

There is a song my mother sings to me, whilst cleaning the dirty dishes as I eat my pancakes in the morning, and the song is about a rose in a garden of thorns, with petals so red they scare away darkness, and a promise of life and love and liberty. She dances slightly, seemingly oblivious to the gaping hole that pulses in her chest and stains her shirt with blood. Some wounds you become accustomed to, I learnt from her. My mother says there was a war, and that noble people were lost to a terrible cause, and I do not know what that means, only that the angel over our mantle seems to agree. I do not know much about him, the angel in our living room, nor am I familiar with the man in the portrait who watches my mother sleep. Nevertheless, there is a light in the silver eyes of the woman who raised me when she talks about my father, about how he loved with everything and all, how he held me in his arms and cradled my head against his chest, as if he could protect me from everything in this world.

I do not remember being held against his chest. I do not remember the man in the portrait at all. From time to time, amid the busy streets of the city I was raised in, I wonder if he remembers me more than I remember him. I wonder if he is angry at me for not remembering him. My mother remembers him. She says that he did not wear a cape, nor could he fly or turn invisible or release lasers from his eyes, but he was noble and brave and wise and loving, and all of those traits are what made him a hero.

I want to be a hero someday, just like my Father was. I do not understand why Mother cries at this, or why she has to tell the angel who hovers above our mantle, as if he can see her and comfort her and stop her tears. Perhaps he can. Perhaps one day, when I am a hero, I will be able to see him too. Perhaps he was a hero one time as well, and maybe he can help me out.

Mother says Father was a hero. I know that Father was a hero. I also now know that the angel above our mantle was a hero, because Mother talks to him all the time, and she says he remembers me and he is not angry that I do not remember him. The angel in our living room who is the colour of our walls and finds his halo amusing once had eyes the colour of Harvest yield and hair as black as night, which is ironic, because my hair is just the same. He used to love with everything and all, and his bravery liberated nations and hushed the most irrepressible of crowds, and now his absence leaves a gaping hole in my mother's chest, but I see it healing day by day, and I know something I did not know before.

My father may have been a hero, but so is my mother. My mother who, despite the madness that is her life and the grief that pierces her fragile heart, stands as tall as the army that marched with my father. My mother who is a soldier, no matter what her status says, who loved me with everything and all the way that she was once loved, is still loved, because her love is all I have ever known, and her love is what has crafted me into the person I am today. The hole in her chest still pulses slightly, but the blood that once stained her shirt is no longer there, and i am glad that she has healed her wounds; that she is still working on healing her wounds, because I do not know where I would be without her.

My mother, who will one day join my father above the Mantle in our living room, who will sit by my bed and watch me in my tranquillity, who will stand by the person she loves again, two flowers in a garden of thorns, is the person I have always wanted to be.

Mother says Father was a hero, but what she is forgetting is that she is also the valiant protagonist of my life.