Soft Silence | ✓ | unedited

preface

Laugh, love, live.

Those were the three words my mother used to say before she went away on long business trips. That was what my sister would say when she went away to summer camp. That's always been our parting line before we spent weeks without each other.

So if ever she had to go, my mother would grab me into a vice-tight hug and rain kisses on my face. Then she'd stand on the porch with her bags and look to me and my sister and smile. She'd wave at us and then say, "Take care of yourselves, my darlings. Laugh, love and live!"

We didn't take the literal meaning and go party with alcohol, no. I was much too young for that and my sister cared too much about me to do something incredibly reckless.

I never understood why my mother would put those three words in that particular order.

But before I could ponder on those three Ls, another three words forced themselves upon me –like a smack in the face.

Loss, anguish, and forgiveness.

Again, in a specific order and again, another three words for me.

Did I care for those three words? No.

I knew the meaning for them but I had no desire to live through those words. Losing someone is possibly the worst feeling imaginable. Anguish is unbearable pain, agony.

Forgiveness?

Did I even have a right to that word anymore?

Who was I supposed to forgive when it happened because of me?

Three words from my mother and sister, three words I had to find on my own and live them.

Six words to fully understand.