Carry Me, too     

Ivory flakes drift in the breeze while landing gently upon my damp hair. Despite the rays of the sun, a shiver covers my slim figure. The blur of ice attaches to my lashes as it conceals my vision. While I enjoy the winter’s cool, I approach the local flower stand to purchase a lily to present to my mother, the finest I could find. I hand my bills to the kind lady who owns the seasonal greenhouse. She exchanges my payment for the flower wrapped in a decorated plastic and grants me a safe night with a pleasant nod. She reminds me of the light that only remains to exist in few.
          When I arrive home I find my mother kneeling in front of the mantel in her endless grief. Her head hangs low, her eyes protected by a layer of tears. Her clothes have yet to change, and her expression is as dull as night that her husband successfully escaped our physical world.  She turns her head to accept the lily I have delivered, though continues her ritual of relieving her guilt. My mother was once a lively young spirit whose life was free of worry. I faintly recollect her shining smile, her blonde hair reflecting the sun above. Few images of her past remain in my mind, though I do cherish that few I have. She has been wickedly played by the false phenomenon that is "love". I now gaze at her pale expression, her eyes as grey and ghostly as the air on a Halloween night, and sigh knowing that her soul has been so devilishly stolen from her, that this visualization of her that I see now is the one that she will forever be caged within.
         “My mother was abducted from God himself. He took both my father and mother away from me, leaving me to survive in a worthless life. I will soon give in to your demons, God. For you have taken my life’s meaning.” I clandestinely express in my writings. I believe that I am correct in my thoughts, though I am a young man, only an “immature teenager”, I strongly stand by how I act and what I say. God has taken from so many, creating us - only to destroy us. I inscribe in my journal for a bit longer, until I recite my previous writing,                                                                                                                                                          

“I will return to you one day
for God is punishing me for a reason I do not know.
I hope a day will come where our love gains the strength to take me to you.
Please don’t neglect me, please accept me, God.
I only want my hurt to end,
return me to my father.”

     I close the leather bound book to conceal the secrets, to conceal the truth, and push it beneath my bed. I soon found myself asleep sitting on the worn rug in my room, anxiously awaiting my death. “Maybe tonight,” I ponder to myself.

          During the sunrise of the following brisk winter morning, I bring myself to the stand where the lady I’ve come to adore over the past few months sits contently behind the register. She has light brunette hair that most would mistake as blonde, though I've examined the locks intently after quite awhile and have concluded that it is a golden shade. It curls down from the root to the tip like only natural curls can do, while it rests magnificently against her broad shoulders. All of her features were evidently crafted with perfection, her charcoal eyelashes are long and dark, and her figure is large in width, though petite in height. Her pearling grin stretches across her face as she notices me walking by. Her arms were bare, shaking, and covered with red in the freeze of the late afternoon. God has taken funds away from her and left her to suffer, I assume. I, in my plaid flannel jacket, approach her and greet her as I would do everyday. I extend my hand past the counter to obtain my typical lily, though I remember who truly deserves this flower tonight, the eve of Christmas, and swing my arm to the left a bit while instead grabbing the brightest of roses with the plumpest of pedals. I pay the woman, though the sound of her voice shocks me when she begins to speak. I look up without recognition that the voice I was hearing was hers. She questions me on my choice, knowing that I do purchase a lily everyday. I replied that it was for a man I am very close with. She agreed that I had picked the freshest of roses and that he would find it to be a wonderful gift. She explains her journey to growing such a rose and how only the most spectacular of men deserve it. Unexpectedly, I lash out at her, telling her that he and his opinions are none of her business. I had a habit of stammering when the truth seemed so far from what I was saying, and as I am pressure to respond, my tone crescendos into a wail. She apologizes, though I fail to restrain myself from continuing. “You shall never speak of him, who he is, what he deserves, or what matters to him!” I cry.
      When conversing, I often feel as if the other member is attempting to attack me, to invade my knowledge. Without a parental figure, I have been forced to pretend I can handle the struggles and ways of typical life, though I admittedly cannot. I feel the sting of a knife releasing the blood of my throat, the wrath of a devil removing my vocal chords. I feel so mentally infiltrated. My father and I were close, but God took him from me. In that moment while roaring at this innocent, undeserving woman, I saw God masking her face, and I was terrified. I saw the enemy that I had not been emotionally prepared to face in her during that moment.
       Embarrassed after a silence, I pace past the stand with many abrupt steps preventing me from sinking into the snow. Teardrops now are currently cascading down my face in an anxious reaction to my failed communication. As I curse to the clouds above I find myself descending into the snow. My cheek sat against the ice as a jagged piece of plywood stabbed my stomach. I detach myself, then look down upon the lonesome wood. It doesn't take me long to notice that it matches the exterior of a nearby shed, the shed I had seen the flower lady enter many times. Perhaps it was her home, I question. I see my jacket falling off my raw shoulders, the same peach skin that was surrounding the freezing, unheated lady. Then, a realization struck me.
   It is not the lack of opportunity that she was given, it was the plentiful opportunity given to me. God is not depriving some of their needs, he is gifting opportunity to assist those in need. It is what I have rather than what she does not. I am given what I have to help her, not watch her struggle and blame God, for God has done good in giving me enough. I sprint back towards the stand and wrap my jacket around her bare, shaking arms. In that moment, I look into her glistening, sapphire eyes and see but the woman I've lost for so long. I see my mother's soul portrayed, and smile for the first time in what seems to have been eternity. For this moment alone, this small, insignificant moment, my deeds reflect my wants as I understand.

     I revolve the stem of the bright, ruby rose as I near my destination. I kneel in front of the grave I was searching for. I lower my head and wipe the snow from the inscription, and give my father his rose. I stand in front of the diamond ice that shields my father’s name. The warmth of my mother’s breath soothes me as it did years ago. I instantly turn to see an angel cloaked in white with the face of the most wonderous woman. She grabs my hand and sits in the layer of arctic ice. She gestures that I sit with her. I do so, and though I expected the ground to be chill, it didn’t seem it at all. In that moment I shared with my mother, the snow didn’t seem so cold. The dark didn’t seem so harsh. Knowledge didn’t seem so crucial. The somber evening seemed to vanish. Life didn’t seem so sad. God didn’t seem so evil.
     I grasp my mother’s palm. She tells me to let her spirit guide me, and to let my Love’s strength lift me. She instructs me to close my eyes and talk to God, for my begging will resolve. I then see his welcoming spirit in the beaming gleam of the moon's reflection and request him to carry me, too, in hopes that he will obey.