With Love, Diana ✅

Dear Mom,

Dear

Mom,

You're the first person I am writing to! Anyway, dont worry; this letter is not for blaming you. And the best thing is there aren't any seconds and so even if you decide to burn it, nobody is going to ring our – oops! By the time you read it, it probably will be your – doorbell and demand explanation for this letter. No, none of those things will happen, so you can definitely stop here and throw it in the trash. But just to honor my death, if you do decide to read it, then know that this is just to brief you on my side of the story. Cause you never quite knew what was going on, did you?

Remember mom, that day you took Kat and me to the zoo, when we were kids? I was so scared that the animals would break open their cages and devour us that I refused to come down from your lap. I stuck to your hip the whole day, even though I knew it was exhausting for you to carry me in the heat. Because to me, you were my Wonder Woman, mom. I believed that if the animals did manage to get out even after you repeatedly told me they won't, you were the only one who would keep me safe. That you would single handedly fight off the gorillas and lions without letting us be harmed. This was how much I believed in you, mom.

When dad used to go out on his business trips, I never worried about the bogeyman under my bed, because I knew the bogeyman was no match for your powers. This was how much I had faith in you, mom.

You know, in middle school, when almost every girl in our class started keeping a personal diary, I told you all my secrets because I knew you would never let it spill. And the ones I didn't share, you got to know just by looking at me. You were my secret diary. This was how much I trusted you, mom.

But as the years rolled by and I grew up from the age of pirates and dragons, it was like one by one, you peeled off your covers, the way you peel potatoes. You stopped being my confidante, your powers to awe me dimmed and suddenly there was a crack in your porcelain façade. I realized you had stopped caring. That the money Dad started to bring in had snatched up all your attention off me, off us. You became the person you used to snicker about.

Do you know how I came to the full blown realization, mom? Last year, when I came down the stairs, with puffy eyes and dark circles, wearing a baggy hoodie and sweatpants, you looked at me, stunned. I was afraid of you asking me questions and I was afraid of lying to you. (Can you imagine that now mom? Can you imagine me not lying to you anymore? ) But I needn't have worried. For, as it turned out you were gaping at my fashion choices and not at the state I was in. So after narrowly scrutinizing my attire, you said,

"D, I know you never cared that much for fashion trend. But please dont go out like that. What will people say?"

And I realized that had become your motto. Every day, everything you do, you ask yourself what people would think. And if the response is positive, you go ahead to do that with full enthusiasm, with a smile that now charms millions but holds none of the warmth of the woman who brought me up.

So mom, tell me, did you ever think you would become the person you stuck out your tongue at?

But you know what the worst part was? That finding out you no longer wanted me. That now I had become a burden from a daughter.

Don't try to deny it, mom. You know it's true. I have proof.

Remember the night, six months back, when you and dad took Kat and me to a family dinner? We knew before hand something was wrong, because our family had dissipated into strangers. But we never knew it would be a divorce. And we realized that you had only brought us out so that we didn't make a scene. It was scary how calculative you had become.

But that wasn't the end of our nightmare.

No. That night, the news of your divorce had struck up a long lost spark of sisterhood and we had sneaked downstairs to have a couple of drinks. You know what we heard when we were slowly tiptoeing up to our rooms, mom?

We heard dad pleading with you to stay, saying he loved you and asking you what he could do to keep you. When that didn't work he brought us up, saying we needed you and at least you should stay for us. And that was when you uttered the lines that destroyed this already shattered family. You said,

"This family is why I'm leaving, John. This family has become tiresome. I want to enjoy the youth I lost by marrying you."

Kat was biting on her fist to stop from crying out loud and the gasp that dad let out, it was dripping with hurt, mom. Do you realize what you did, mom? You crushed the hearts of the people who loved you the most.

Kat had lost her balance in her sorrow and she had to lean on me to get to her room. I know what you're thinking, mom. That what about me? How did I react? Because breaking two people just wasn't enough, was it?

Well, the answer is nothing. I did nothing. I was too numb and dazed with flashbacks to respond to your venomous words. But don't feel bad, mom, you managed to affect me too. For, I gave up trusting. Because when your confidante betrays you, you start to think nobody gives a shit about your secrets.

In the days that followed your departure, dad died a little bit every day. But you didn't take a week to appear in the newspaper, did you? That boutique announcement was followed by countless other minute details of your life of stardom. And I know these not because I searched the media. But because dad cut each and every clipping of you, profiling it like he had done the photographs of our holidays.

So mom, I hope you're happy in the life that you chose. Just, if you ever had a heart, please try to keep in touch with dad, or if not, make him hate you; else the grief of you leaving will kill him.

At last, know that I wish for you to keep the books you gave me along with the journal scrapbooks I did. If you want to, that is. Maybe that will bring back our age old tradition of sharing secrets. Oh and I forgot! If you search my belongings, you might not be able to find that red shawl of yours. I never could sleep without it and I hope it won't fail me now.

And mom, remember I never stopped loving you. I would've told it you sooner, but then you never called. So,

With love,

Diana

P.S – I decided in not telling what was going on with my life after all. You would'nt have cared anyway.