Disclaimer: I do not own Harper Lee, or the quotes at the beginning of this story or in its summary (they're from the same piece but I don't know who wrote it).
A/N: I am SO sorry I've been away for so long! Everything in my life has been a hot mess (in the past month I've stress-cried way more than I'm comfortable admitting), but things are slowly coming together—I have just three more chapters of my thesis and two papers to write before this semester is over (and I got into law school, AHHH!) so the elephant that has made its home on my chest is slowly becoming less heavy. I'm still writing I want all that is not mine, but it's just been incredibly hard for me to keep up (hopefully I'll update soon)! Also, this story is probably real low quality of writing, but I saw this passage that made me weep (it was beautiful) and it sort of reminded me of my imagined version of Jean Finch, and so I tried to get myself back in the writing game. It's a little jumpy, but hopefully it's not too awful!
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"…the things you love best about yourself are pieces of her. Her softness, her forgiveness, and her sacrifice."
The smell of tomatoes frying on the stovetop never failed to remind him of her. Calpurnia never did it the same, of course. She never put the same copious amounts of salt and pepper in hers like mama did, making them incredibly bland in comparison. Jem had come to respect them in a different way, but he often found himself longing for those salty, spicy fried tomatoes he had as a child.
In the years since her passing, he thought of her frequently. Whether it be from the sound of frying tomatoes, or the way the sunlight reflected off of the window just right so miniscule rainbows formed on the wall, or the way she scrunched her nose when she was deep in thought. With great ease, he remembered how she swiftly moved about the kitchen while she cooked and as she hummed to herself all the while, and the way she picked him and Scout up with such ease, and danced them around the house until they laughed so hard they could hardly breathe. How Atticus made her laugh. How she made him laugh.
His most frequent memories were of her tending to Mrs. Dubose when the old woman was first beginning to get ill, of her being encouraging to Maudie and to Stephanie and to nearly every other person in Maycomb. She was always arranging flowers or trays of sweet desserts for people in town when they were feeling down, and could almost always be called upon during somebody's time of need. All the while, she never neglected the needs of her family. She was always tending to Scout, playing with him, and giving the rest of her energy towards her husband. At only six years old, Jem had come to think of his mother as a magician, able to give up herself to others without feeling empty or drained.
"When others are broken, my darling boy," she said to him once when he was five years old, after Aunt Alexandra had made a crude comment about a pair of mulatto children she had seen in town. "You must do your best to make them whole, even if it means giving pieces of yourself to them. That way, they can take the light that you've given them and spread it to even more people."
Her beacon of light. That's what she had called him ever since he could remember. Mama's beacon of light. Little did she know that he thought of her as his lighthouse—a symbol of stability who always showed him the way home.
And that light nearly went out when she died.
It was clearly visible that Maycomb was damaged as a result of Jean Finch's death. Cal always seemed sad, his aunt and uncle always talked about what a shame it had been ("she was simply too young!" Jack would exclaim), the ladies in town would sigh when they set their eyes on the Finch's, and Jem was quite sure that he'd never see Atticus smile again.
After her death, he could only remember feeling angry. Angry that his mama was gone and never coming back, angry that he lost his light and angry that dumb old Scout would never know mama, never understand her. Had mama given up so much of herself to others that it led to her death? He couldn't help but to frequently think of how unfair this all was.
When her light went out, so did his. While he managed just fine on most days during his youth, there were times were he was irritable and sad and tried to understand the world and just couldn't.
And she would bring him back to reality. Her voice in his mind telling him that he mustn't get angry at that which he didn't understand. Telling him the virtue of patience and kindness. He learned to be more patient with Scout for not knowing mama and understanding why Jem would get so upset. He learned to be kinder to Atticus instead of lashing out because his father handled his grief differently. He learned to live with his grief and most importantly he learned that even though mama was gone he could still receive valuable lessons from the example she set.
As he grew he became calmer and gentler. He learned to sacrifice things he wanted to do for the greater good. He tutored the mulatto children after school because nobody else wanted anything to do with them. He taught the weaker boys to play football when the teams didn't want them. He spent long hours clerking for his father and doing errands for Cal when he could have been engaging in whatever his classmates were doing. He spent time with Scout at the times when she felt like an outcast. To each of these people, he gave pieces of himself through his words and actions in order to make them whole. It was only then when he realized that mama never felt empty because by making others whole, she was strengthening herself.
Unlike many of his peers, the war didn't harden him. While he was indeed shocked by the death and destruction around him, by how desolate Europe had become and appalled by how cruel humans could be, he didn't let it harden him. In the times when he was scared and missing home and being swept by negative thoughts, the memory of his mama kept him firmly planted on the ground. She reminded him of how you must sacrifice yourself so that others can have opportunity at life, how you must show nothing but kindness and sincerity, even when all you wanted to do was to be angry. He needed to be hope for the people he encountered, needed to show them that they too could be beacons of light for those around them.
He left Europe alive and traveled back to Maycomb, to the tired old town that would probably be his for the rest of his life. He'd study law like Atticus, he decided. He'd study law and defend those who couldn't do it for themselves and be a fine gentleman like Atticus. He'd share his mother's kindness and his father's wisdom to anyone who would listen, and would hopefully make a difference in this often devastating world.
He studied law in Montgomery, the city where his mother grew up lifetimes ago. The city where thirty-five year old Atticus Finch met twenty year old Jean Graham and fell in love. The city that he somehow felt tied to his entire life.
He met Lucy in Montgomery. She was a bright little thing with red hair and brown eyes whose laugh was enough to make his heart swell. He fell in love with her almost instantaneously (he never believed in love at first sight) and Atticus mused at how Montgomery girls had some sort of magnetic attraction to Finch men. That made Jem feel even more connected with his parents, and he couldn't help but to feel proud at that. As a child, he had wanted to be just like Atticus, and now it seemed as though that goal was actually being achieved. He was going to be a lawyer and have the best wife he could ask for and live the life that Atticus should have had if it weren't for mama's untimely death.
And that made him happy. It was as though the years of devoting himself to others and working hard paid off—he would have a calm, peaceful life. The anger and sadness he frequently felt after mama's death would become a thing of the past. He'd be happy, forever carrying the piece of herself that mama gave him before she died, spreading that light to all of those in his path.
He died before he turned thirty, before he had a chance to marry Lucy, before he had a chance to have the life he'd been dreaming of. Yet, the end of his life wasn't sad for him. It was beautiful. When his eyes shut for the final time just before his body collided with the pavement, it was as though he'd seen the universe. Stars and galaxies and constellations and all of the colors one could ever imagine. With his dying breath, he released mama's love and sacrifice and honor into the universe, for anyone to take to make themselves whole, just as mama taught him.