This is my first CCS fiction. I actually really like this so be sure to let me know what you think.

Summary: All my life I've always both hated and loved my mom. She left me before I got the chance to know her, and left a huge whole in my family. But then I read a letter that changed my life. Oneshot

A Letter from My Mother

Today's the anniversary of my mother's death. A woman I never knew. A woman who both my father and my brother love so dearly, whom I never knew. I stand there while silently while all three of us pray. Or at least they are. I have no idea what to pray for; I have no idea what to say to this woman. A woman whose picture we keep on our kitchen table. The woman who stole my father's heart, and never quite let it go. Even in her death. My family silently worships this woman. At least once a day the name Nadeshiko tickles my ears. I can no longer even bear to look at the flower she's named after.

I'm constantly compared to this woman. My family says that I'm the splitting image of her personality. Some even say that I look like her. I look at the picture of the dead model, and I am never able to think so, I am not able to think I'm in any way similar to this god of a woman. I can't bear to look at the picture. I'm not my own person when I look at the picture. I am my mother's daughter. Nothing more, nothing less. It hurts deeply to think about it.

I find myself feeling guilty when I look at the picture. I never knew this woman, and yet her memory causes my family pain. I can't remember her, so I can't bear the burden of her missing presence as my father and brother do. I can not make myself feel sorry. I can't make myself feel pain. What's worse is that we never talk about her in this house, she's like a celebrity to me, I know who she is, and yet I don't know who she is.

After I'm done feeling guilty I become angry. Why? Why did she have to die when I was three? Why did she have to go away and leave, to be forever in my family's memory? She's like a curse hovering over my household never leaving. Why? Why am I the only one who can't see her? Why did she have to leave before I could get to know her? Why is it that both my brother and my father are visited by her spirit, but not me? Am I not good enough for her to visit? Did she not love me when she was alive?

Then I burst into tears, and I stop being mad. I will myself to let the sadness take over. I love her. She's the shadow that looms over me, and I love her. There's nothing much that I can do or say. We leave her grave and head home.

We all go our separate ways and report to our respective rooms for the rest of the evening. I'm on my bed thinking about her again. I shake my head and decide to go to see what my dad is doing.

He's on the floor and is reading some papers. I knock on the door. "Dad?" I call out. He looks up at me straight in the eye, and gives a slight smile. "Hi sweetheart." he says. The look on his face is forlorn and reaching. I feel as if he is looking right through me, to the bits of her inside of me.

I ignore the look and ask him, "What're you reading?" He cheers up just a little and looks up at me. "Poems. Your mother loved to write poetry, about every little thing." he said with a small smile. Then he suddenly shoots up and heads toward a desk. He pulls out an envelope, and hands it to me. "Your mom wrote this during her illness, and told me to give it to you when you turn sixteen, I'm sorry I forgot to give it to you." he said sheepishly. I had turned sixteen last month.

"It's okay dad, I'll just read it now. Thanks though." I smiled. He smiled back, but this time he smiling at me. Sakura. I take the envelope with me to my room and place it on my desk. I pace to and fro, and I wonder what to do with it. I also wonder if my brother had gotten a similar package. I decide to stop pacing and I sit down at my desk. I open the envelope and there's a letter and a cherry blossom pendant. I pick up the pendant and run my fingers over it. It's beautiful. I look at the first letter.

Dear Sakura,

Today you have just turned sixteen. Congratulations! It must feel great. I can remember being at that age, when you feel invincible. Like no one can bring you down, and you dare anyone to try. I wish I could be there, to braid your hair and tell you stories about my days. I wish I could be there to watch the boys fawn over you and chase after you. I wish I could be there to see you on your first date. To see your father threaten the poor boy till he's too scared to so much as hold your hand.

I laugh. My dad did in fact do that. It was so hard to convince him it was okay to hold my hand.

I wish I could be there to talk to you about sex. I can only imagine how awkward of a conversation that must've been for your father. He gets embarrassed so easily.

I laugh again. My dad's idea of the sex talk was to sit me down and say. "Boys are dogs, stay away from them."

I have so many hopes and wishes for you Sakura. But here I am. Dying. I will never see you walk down the aisle when you meet a man good enough to start a family wish. I'll never see you graduate from high school, or college, or elementary school for that matter. I won't even get the satisfaction of taking you to your first day at kindergarten, and watch you kick dirt in boys faces, and tell me that they have cooties. The only memories of you I'll be taking with me to heaven, are the ones of you in your diapers, spitting up your food, and that amazing day when you said 'Mama' for the first time.

I could see that there are numerous dried tear drops on the paper at this part. Some of them smudge the ink ever so slightly. I find myself close to tears as well as I read her words.

I should stop getting emotional. After all this is your big day. So anyway, I just wanted to give you some parting advice to you.

1. When a guy tells you he loves you, don't automatically take him at his word. It only takes half a man to say that he loves you, but a true man will show you just how much he does.

2. Always remember that your family is what is most important. There will be many things in life that will come to you and sway you and even people will try to bring you and your family apart, but never let them. They were the first people to love you. Always remember that.

3. A true friend will accept you completely for every nook and cranny that you have, including your faults. In fact in due time, he'll come to love your faults. After all that's what makes you, you. So never try to sway, or change for anyone, because when you do, they love you for the illusion, not for the person behind it.

4. Go for your education! Your father may or may not have told you this, but I never got past my high school graduation. Your father is about 14 years older than me. Did you know that? We were married when I was sixteen. I never regretted it. But I want a different path for you. I want you to follow your dreams and make something special of yourself. I want you to be the first female president. I want so much from you baby girl, and if I have to come down from heaven and beat sense into you don't think I won't.

5. My last and final piece of advice. Be happy. Please my child that's all that matters to me. Just be happy. I want the world for you, but as long as you're happy that's all that matters. I want you to have no dying regrets like I d. I have so many of them, but one thing I do not regret, and that is you, your father and your brother. I love all of you so much. Your memories will make me die happy. I'll always remember you, and I'll always love you. My darling. My daughter.

Your mother,

Nadeshiko

P.S. I nearly forgot. In the envelope is a pendant. That has been passed down in my family from daughter to daughter since my great-great grandmother. I hope that you will wear it on your neck till your daughter is sixteen and then pass it on again. Take care, Cherry Blossom Girl.

I have finished the letter and I'm bawling my eyes out. My mother did love me. She DOES love me. She does care about me. All this time I wasted hating my mother, I hadn't realized that she loved me more than anything in the world. She wanted the best for me, and she regretted leaving me, before she could get to know me. Just as I do. I understand her, and I feel like I've known her all my life, but never realized it. I continue to cry, and then a breeze touches my cheek. I look up and then I see her in my room. "Mom?" I call out. She puts a finger to my lips. "I love you, cherry blossom girl." she whispers, and then disappears. I'm convinced that I was hallucinating until I see a nadeshiko blossom on the floor.

I just had to write this it just came to me. I was a little inspired by "The Time Traveler's Wife" when Clare reads the poem her mom read her. I've always thought about Sakura's mom, so I decided to write this.