The house was quiet, the only noise Imogen heard as she woke up suddently in the middle of the night was Gandalf, lazily snoring at the end of her bed. She tried to go back to sleep but, somehow, she couldn’t. She took her fellow plushie Apollo and stealthily tiptoed to the kitchen… but as she arrived at the top of the staircase she stopped. Someone downstairs was sobbing. She held Apollo closer, cause if it could protect her at night, it could sure help whoever was feeling so much pain. He was her personal stuffed protector after all.
But what she found in her kitchen left her speechless.
You don’t forget the first time you see your mother vulnerable. That moment when all her superheroine masks fall and you’re struck with the realisation that she’s a human being too, with flaws and weaknesses like everybody else. She’s not invincible. She can fake it, hide her uncertainties and pain behind a wall, but through its cracks pain leaks unrelentingly. So little and so powerless in front of such a profound grief, so boundless and deep that it was impossible for Imogen to understand it, to grasp whatever it could be about… but most of all. how to heal it. She tried so bad to understand, she wanted to make Brynn’s pain her own, just to see her her mouth curved into one of ther comforting smiles, just to be sure her bright blue eyes would have looked at her with joy again. She wanted her mom back. Imogen was scared. But it was a weird fear because usually you always detect what caused it in the first place… in that moment, she had no idea. She saw her mom like that and all she felt was fear. She really tried to get what was going on, she wanted to understand what mom was going through… but when she looked upon that grief’s edge, she saw everything she would have never expect from her mom: her past, her frustrations, fear of the future, lost relationships and friendships, that constant fear of never being enought, no matter how hard she tried. Imogen undestood the abyss’ extent, but she couldn’t jump in it and save her. She wanted, but she couldn’t, not yet.
Brynn heard Imogen’s soft gasp and she lifted her head, looking at her daughter with watery eyes. When their gazes met, Imogen knew her mom was broken. Those big eyes, caught red-handed in their moment of weakness, a luxury granted by mistake, by exhaustion, certain they’ll never get caught. Imogen saw it clearly written in her distraught expression: “I let my daughter down”. Everyone knows moms always have to be there for you with the right answer, sure about what the next move shold be, with everything under their control…watching as the fear of not being enough for Imogen stabbed her mother brought her on the verge of tears. Back then she couldn’t understand why she wanted to cry so so bad… but now, she does.
“Mom, I’m just like you.“
