I didn’t know why my mother’s crying wouldn’t stop. On the surface, everything seemed normal. People came and went. Birds perched on the rooftops, and shadows fled from the sun. Nothing had changed, so why wouldn’t my mother’s crying stop?
Everything started from there. A death that I didn’t know was a rebirth or an eternal regret. After that, I saw her. That polished being, like a deep and calm sea. That nameless wanderer who walked with me on a path that crossed the boundaries of death. But just as I was getting used to this new life, she left me too.
Now it was just me and the regret I had to carry. The regret of something I could no longer find. I had lost everything. I had no other path but to move towards eternity. It was there that I first understood my own nature. I was the remnant of the regret of days I could no longer live.
I traversed countless lands. There was no place I hadn’t been, or at least that’s what I thought. In the end, I decided to return home, to the starting point of everything. Home, the place I knew would never reject me. I wanted to see my mother’s smile again, to feel that warm atmosphere once more. I wanted to see my father. I sincerely wanted everything to be as I remembered. But I knew well that nothing would ever be the same again. Neither I, nor my father, nor my mother would ever be the same. I couldn’t call out to them, embrace them, and shout that I… would love them forever.
What a terrifying image it was. Two broken people eating in silence, staring at the photo of their dead child, a child who, even after death, hadn’t left them, sitting beside them and enjoying watching them, even though they could never see him.
Even that image would satisfy me. That alone would be enough to heal my wounds. I wanted to return, like that lost child who had lost his way and knew only one thing: “I will return home no matter what…”
When I returned, there was no home. Years… no, decades had passed since my death. Just when I had found a destination for myself, I was lost again. I went to the old cemetery in town, hoping that this way I could tell them that after all these years, I had finally returned. I saw their names on a cracked tombstone. This was not what I had returned to see. I, no! It’s better to say this endless regret from the days I should have spent with my loved ones wanted something else. Maybe even a cold smile would have been enough to ignite the fire within me.
“My son… you finally returned…”
That voice… a voice I had never forgotten. A voice that said: Welcome home! It brought with it a gentle fragrance of eternal love that was the beating heart of the home. My mother… she had been here all along.
When I saw her face, I was startled. She wasn’t alone. My father was there too, standing beside her. Perhaps if his hand wasn’t in my mother’s, I wouldn’t have recognized that handsome young man. Beside him… it was impossible! I had been wandering all this time because I wanted to reach her, but she had been here at home all along. She stood beside my father. A family waiting for its last member to embark on the eternal journey.
She came towards me, took my hand, and led me to my family. She knew I would return, knew where to wait for me, but it took me years to understand where I needed to go. I had forgotten my memories. I left home to find a new one. It was there that I realized some things cannot be changed, it doesn’t matter if you’re alive or not, there is only one home for you to return to whenever you feel lonely. I had forgotten the most important thing; I left home to reach something I was never meant to own because I already had it with me all along.
