LatinosUSA

The young man arrived at the train station. He was afraid he might be late. He stood on the platform and looked out over the tracks. There he saw a small girl, about three or four, playing in a cardboard box on the tracks. She was so absorbed in her play that she didn’t hear, or ignored, the sounds of the approaching train.

The young man was about to leap off the platform and run to save her when a hand firmly held his shoulder to prevent him.

“She’s diseased. You can’t save her,” a voice from behind him said.

Just then, the train roared by, the noise obscuring any other sound. When the tracks were visible again, the girl was gone. The cardboard box was crushed.

The young man woke up in his bed. He knew exactly what that dream meant. The little girl was his mother in her warped mental/emotional reality due to childhood trauma.

He loved her so much and longed for her love. The dream convinced him that she would never change, that there was nothing he could do to help her. He understood that she wasn’t capable of showing love to her children, that she could never be the mother he wanted and needed. With his new realizations, the young man was less frustrated when he was around her.

Decades later, she died.

The morning after her death, he was driving to an appointment when a symphony came on the radio. He recognized it, though he did not know its name or composer. But this time, the music was more grand, glorious, and exultant than he remembered. He realized it was the total and complete joy of his mother, finally freed from the restraints and limitations of the physical world. He cried in relief that she had such joy after a life of pain and distortion.

He later wondered if he would recognize her when he joined her in the next world. Would she finally find the peace and fulfilment she didn’t have when she was alive?

That was a question he had to hold until it was his time to leave. He was content that he had done all could for her while she was alive. He could now live his own life and discover what that might be.