The Mother's Heart

[Keo]

People with big hearts don’t last long in this land. Hunger rips it’s people, the hunger for hope and change and good. Famine weakens a steady mind, and a resolute soul turns murky under the smudge of pain. Pain, the old friend of the young people, who were brought crashing to their knees under the weight their parents were too old to vanquish. The old foe, the dip to give in to desperation. In a child so young, so tender. Such an eager heart, an openness that belied his harsh upbringing. The very things he was taught never to keep, the things he was born to do. The father that wouldn’t keep him, the parent who took in bitterness because a man needed to provide for his family, for himself, and forgetting a weakness in pain is the easiest out. And the mother that died, the mother that loved and loved, with her whole unselfish being, that woman, she was stark raving mad in a place ruled by fear and hopelessness. The one born with such hope, such a strong faith in goodness that she could love the imperfect. That she could raise a son until sickness stole her away. The gentleness, the eager and patient hopefulness she instilled into her son’s dear open heart was priceless, in a time when darkness was the only source of light. She endowed him with her great heart, her great capacity to love and give and be loved. And how, after her death, he yearned for her, something he barely remembered, the warm spot of goodness that faded as the darkness in his home thickened. And he lost it, the ability to recall the softness she had called forth in him. He lost the eye for kindness and mercy as a man’s way of living was to live brutally and he was to be raised a man.