Her Embraces Were Enough

Trotting along, kicking dust all the while inhaling the senses that surrounded me; this was my favorite childhood pastime. On one of these days, I came upon a man, though I must admit I had heard him before I saw who's face belonged to such noise. My bare innocence lured me to his wooden front door and I knocked before I even thought of my reasoning for being there.

Behind the wall, I heard his footsteps creaking the floorboards as he made his way to the door. Moments later, I made out his eye from the "peeping hole" we so often used in our dares. "Who goes there," his voice bellowed and in fright I almost scurried away.

"Me," I said meekly as if my voice would be recognizable to him. The door was flung open, and in his gigantic 6ft. looming build, my heartbeat quickened to a pace where my fear for the explosion of my chest made me pray I would be invisible. That he would just turn around and go back inside. That I was just dreaming, and soon he would trample me over and I'd wake to the sound of my own screaming.

But he didn't– instead he greeted me warmly and urged me into his cluttered home. I remember scanning the many shelves with colorful shawls and slightly open boxes and I wondered what lay inside of them. As we made our way into his red alternating tan living room, I heard a wheezing in the room we had just passed. Excusing himself, he pointed to the tea and date cookies on the kitchen island, silently telling me to help myself. I nodded and sat where I was.

The croaking ensued, followed by a comforting 'shhh'. I concluded that his wife was very ill, and thus was the state of his home due to this very fact.

After what seemed like centuries, he emerged from the bedroom, one hand gripped around the knob, closing it silently behind himself, and the other wound around his shoulder, rubbing gently.

"What's the matter," I asked, dubiously.

"My mother is very ill."

His face was depicted so solemnly, anyone who hadn't sat this close to notice his heavy breathing could easily mistake him for a sculpture. Unknowing of what to say, I sat still, hands clenched in my lap. When the silence became eerily unnerving, I asked, "will she ever get better?"

To which he replied, "not unless I get worse."

"I don't understand."

"Let me tell you of something, perhaps one day it will be of benefit to you in ways money cannot."

I sat still.

"When you hug your mother, you're prone to feeling lighter, happier. Do you know why this is?"

I shook my head.

His eyes were on the opened window behind me, as if he were speaking to an entity beyond my vision. "This is because at birth, in fear of your well-being, your mother takes burden of the pain, you otherwise would've been inflicted upon. As you grow older, every embrace, every tear that is cast by her fingers, this is her way of molding you with successes, but reprieving any one thing that may discourage you."

"But I'm sure you're aware that nothing in this world is free. Decades went by, and her hardships became more difficult as my problems progressed with intensity. University, work, getting married, having children. Happiness in any one of these was by the elation in her hugs. She drained everything but joy in our lives, and with time she grew weak."

He went on. "She is terribly sick, and I am afraid she will pass and a number of days will make us forget her blessed soul. So, in hopes of maintaining whatever little is left of her, I strain my arms massaging hers. Often do I envelop her with a replica of her affection for me. And often do I fail. No burden is given to me from her weight load. No sickness is cast upon me from her sickness. Thus, I have realized that no matter how much I wish to relieve her, she clasps onto our pain with an iron-grip of might. Only by her passing will she ever release it, but by then, of what purpose will it be."

I sighed noisily, unaware that I'd been holding my breath all the while he spoke. "May I see her?"

He rose from his seat, and I followed suit. At the foot of her bed, I climbed the bed steps, and her face came to view. I quickly glanced back, where the giant lingered in the shadows of the bedroom closet. He nodded, allowing me.

I touched her face, outlining her gaunt cheekbones with my fingertips, engulfing the cold that radiated off of her. I traced her thick, arched eyebrows, let the back of hand heat her eyelids. I made my way slowly down the narrow bridge of her nose. Then, I leaned down, robotically almost, like a ritual, and embraced her alongside her snow-colored blankets. The world seized then, I could swear time came to a halt. It was just a battle between bodies. Of warmth, of frostiness.

Soon enough, I became aware of the goosebumps that were prickling my skin. Of the penetrating stillness. The air grew thick, and I knew then, I had lost the war.