Disclaimer: Characters and situations from "Bridge to Terabithia" belong to Katherine Paterson and probably even Disney. I'm merely borrowing them for a bit.

Mother's Day Gift

No one even sent a card, Judy Burke thought bitterly to herself. Not one, single, stinking Mother's Day card!

She was sitting at her desk in her office staring out the window. Her laptop was on and the cursor was blinking at the top of an empty page.

Judy knew her friends and family were trying to be considerate and thoughtful. No one wanted to remind her that it was just a little over a year since her daughter Leslie had died. A whole year since Judy had last seen her daughter alive, running away from the house in the rain, clutching her little white fluff of a dog.

Last year, Mother's Day had been barely a month after Leslie's death. Judy had been so grief stricken and numb that she didn't even realize the holiday had passed. A few weeks afterward, she realized that she had missed it, but Judy had been more relieved than disappointed at the lack of cards and gifts. The hurt had been too fresh, and at the time, receiving a Mother's Day gift of any kind would have felt wrong to her.

I deserve a Mother's Day card this year, she thought to herself with some heat. I'm entitled to one!

Hadn't she carried a life within her for nine months and bore that life into the world in a haze of blood, sweat and pain? Hadn't she loved, raised and cared for that life for more than 10 years afterward? She had paid her dues to be able to celebrate Mother's Day. It shouldn't matter that she no longer had a child to be a mother to.

Her husband Bill had thought moving to a new place where they had never lived before would speed up the healing process. If there were no memories of Leslie attached to their new home, his thinking went, there would be less pain involved in the recovery. The only problem was that the plan didn't seem to be working. Somehow having a house where there were no memories of their golden-haired daughter made Leslie's absence seem even greater.

Judy was well aware of the process of grieving, as she had accompanied Bill to counseling sessions. It helped, a bit, but knowing the process intellectually still didn't fully prepare her for actually experiencing it. Bill appeared to be handling the grief a little better than herself. He seemed to be able to channel it into work and was writing 12-14 hours a day. Unfortunately, the grieving process had affected Judy the opposite way and she had gotten the Mother of All Writer's Block. She could barely write a paragraph a day, and what she did write was barely fit for publishing. Fortunately, her publisher had been very sympathetic after Leslie's death and told her to finish her latest book whenever she could.

Judy got up from her desk and walked over to the kitchen to make herself some tea. The house was so quiet without Leslie around. Judy was surprised that it was the simple, everyday sounds of a child's life that she missed most; sounds like Leslie's soft footsteps or the sound of her daughter washing up in the bathroom. For the first few weeks after Leslie's death, she found herself listening for her even though she knew in her head that her daughter was gone. She even tried playing music non-stop for most of the day, but it couldn't conceal the silence she perceived. Judy's writer's block made it seem worse. She didn't have writing to fill her head with words and thoughts.

It didn't even help having Prince Terrian around. He was a sweet dog and full of energy, but PT had attached himself to Bill after Leslie's death. PT would play with Judy on occasion, but he would whine and carry on if Bill wasn't the one to walk him.

A few months ago, Bill had suggested that they might think of having another child. Judy had been horrified at the idea. She had lost her temper and screamed at her husband, accused him of being selfish, and of betraying the memory of their daughter. None of it was true of course, and she felt sorry immediately after uttering such terrible accusations, but it still took her a whole day before she could speak to him again. Maybe they could have another child again someday, but right now it just felt wrong.

For the last three months Judy thought she was doing better, but a letter she received had set off a fresh bout of crying and depression; a letter from Jesse Aarons. The letter had been a tear-stained confession of guilt, remorse and heartache. Jesse blamed himself for Leslie's death. Somehow it had gotten into his head that Leslie had died because he didn't ask her to accompany him on some museum visit the day of her death. He had written a heartbreaking request for her forgiveness and listed every regret he had involving his short, but intense friendship with Leslie.

Jesse's letter had broken Judy's writer's block, at least temporarily, and she had written him a long letter, comforting him and attempting to convince him that he shouldn't feel any guilt. She was a little ashamed too because she had not thought of Jesse over the past year. His feelings for Leslie were quite obvious in his letter and she made sure to include several of Leslie's pictures in her reply. Judy also mailed another letter to Jesse's parents telling them of their son's continued grief and asked them to get him some help, if possible.

After sending off Jesse's letter, Judy's writer's block, depression and crying came back with a vengeance. Jesse's heartache and sadness had moved her. Here was another life devastated by such a capricious act of fate. Bill had noticed of course and had tried with great effort to comfort her, but a part of her didn't want to be comforted. She just wanted her daughter back.

As Judy sat in the kitchen nursing her tea, she thought of all the experiences she would never have because Leslie was gone. She wouldn't be able to give Leslie advice on boyfriends or comfort her when one of them broke her heart. There would be no high school or college graduation memories. She would never see Leslie walk down the aisle, or cradle her first grandchild. By the end of this trail of melancholy thoughts, Judy was weeping quietly.

Wiping the tears away from her face, Judy got up and wandered around the house trying to find something to tidy up. The only problem was that she tidied up so much every day that there was little to clean or pick up. She was wandering aimlessly around the house when her nose picked up a familiar scent.

It was Leslie's scent! That combination of ordinary scents from soaps, shampoos and girls makeup that combined together to form an unmistakable scent that was Leslie Burke. The worst thing that had happened in the last year was when Leslie's smell disappeared from her clothes no matter how well Judy had tried to preserve them. Now that scent was in the house!

Judy went from room to room until she picked Leslie's scent up again. It was near the stairs and was coming from the upper floor. She went upstairs and followed the scent down the hall to the disorganized extra bedroom that was unofficially Leslie's.

The new house had three bedrooms, but Bill and Judy felt strange having two guestrooms. They decided one of the bedrooms would be saved specifically for Leslie's personal items, as they didn't have the heart to put her things away in storage. They hoped that it wouldn't turn into some frightening shrine to their lost child, but a nostalgic place to keep her things and her memory. Unfortunately, a year had gone by and most of the boxes still remained unpacked.

As Judy entered Leslie's bedroom, she noticed one of the boxes near the window was partially open. There was rusting of paper from the box as the wind from the open bedroom window blew through the contents of the box. Judy walked over to the box and looked inside. It's contents were somewhat messed up, but at the top was Leslie's diary. The wind from the open window had blown open the journal. Her eyes fell on the middle of an entry. She saw from the date that it was one the last entries Leslie would ever make.

"… Jesse's going to help me with mom's Moms(!) Day card this year. No standardized, homogenized, made in China, cardboard cutout for my mother! Only a one-of-a-kind, handmade card will do!!"

Judy smiled at reading that line. Her eyes moved down to farther down to the last entry on the page.

"… I can't make up my mind and Jesse's starting to get pissed off at me. I mean, it's understandable given that I keep making him finish one card, can the idea, then make him start another one! He wasn't looking too happy after card #5 and he really didn't have to call me those things after card #10. :-p Still, I now have a dozen beautiful cards and One Big Decision to make!!"

Under this last page were bulky pack of a dozen handmade cards in all different shapes and sizes. They were colorful and had wildly differing themes. She could easily differentiate her daughter's clumsy attempts at art from Jesse's precise and flowing style, but they merged together to make a beautiful whole.

The first card was a simple 'Happy Mother's Day' on the cover, the letters enclosed in a heart bordered with lace and painted flourishes. Judy smiled as she opened the card, recognizing her daughter's graceful handwriting. There was a simple "I Love You, Mom!" written inside which caused her eyes to mist up. She snorted in surprised humor as she saw the next card. It was a pretty good caricature of her and Bill dancing under a mirrored ball looking like rejects from "Saturday Night Fever". The caption read "Have a GROOVY Mother's Day!" Jeez Leslie, Judy thought with a wry smile, I'm not THAT old! She went from one card to the next, her spirits lifted as she read each declaration of love from her lost daughter.

As she reached the last card, her eyes opened wide in surprise. There was a painting of an old-fashioned cradle on the front of the card, accented by a softly bordered oval. At the bottom in loud, block letters was written "How about a little sister (or brother) ?!". On the inside of the card Leslie has written, "Just kidding! But seriously Mom, I wouldn't mind sharing YOU on Mother's Day with a little, related someone(?)! Keep an open mind! Love, Leslie."

A little brother. A little sister. Judy realized that it wouldn't be selfish if she and Bill considered having another child. That child would never be a replacement for Leslie. That new soul would never know their older sister in person, but they would know Leslie's story and keep her memory alive. Judy would have another chance at having memories of raising a child to adulthood. She would have another chance at seeing a child of hers grow up, graduate, fall in love, even marry.

Maybe in another two or three years, she thought to herself. Anyway, I would hate to disappoint Leslie.

She closed her eyes and let the wind dry the tears that streaked her face. Judy smiled as she realized that she had gotten not just one, but a dozen Mother's Day cards this year; one for every year of her daughter's life.

She carefully gathered Leslie's journal and all the cards, and headed down the stairs to Bill's office. He wouldn't mind the interruption and Judy was so excited to show him Leslie's wonderful Mother's Day gift.

A/N: To be honest, I'm not satisfied with this story. I wanted to write about Judy's grief, and give her (and us too) some hope in the end. Problem is, the story still doesn't feel right to me and I've run out of ideas. I'm ok with my writing style, but not with the content. It needs to be longer for starters and I'm not sure I've gotten her grief right (given I've never had a really close relative or friend die, let alone experiencing the unimaginable pain of losing a child).

So I would grateful for any suggestions, BtT fans. I'd like to re-write this story and make it better. I think Judy deserves a good story.

Updates:
v.1.1 - Added divider line. Added quotes around journal entries for clarification (cuz FFedit can't handle simple 'blockquote' html tag!!).
v.1.2 - Clarified sentence with bathroom reference per M. Whitten suggestion.