It's freezing here. I guess it's been winter for a long time so I should be used to the cold by now, but this is different. The icy chill goes deeper than my outer layers of skin as I stand in this simple cemetery on a Christmas Eve that's unlike any other I've ever known. The carols echoing from the little stone church fall eerily amongst these headstones and remind me both of what we're fighting to keep and what we've lost, for now, in the process.
The old familiar ache is back. The ache that began when I first thought of the plan to ensure my parents would be safe and that whatever happened to me wouldn't change anything for them. Most of the time since I did it I've been too scared for us, too focused on our task, or too distracted by all the tensions and emotions to even think about what it meant to alter their memories, but it's hitting again tonight. Hard. I want so badly to cry. I just don't know if I have any more tears left.
He has no idea that tonight for the first time I know almost exactly how he feels. Okay, not entirely. I at least knew my parents for a time. I didn't have to grow up without them. I will always have memories of them, even if they have none of me. It's not the grave of my parents. So it's not entirely the same. But it's easier than it ever was to enter into that place with him. Because right now, I'm realizing that I will never see them again and they will never love me again. It's not hard to imagine that someday I may be the one standing in front of a headstone in a forgotten cemetery mourning the two people that I love most in the world, the two people who loved me most but never got to remember me growing up. And that reality is taking my breath away and sending shivers through my heart.
Tonight, like him, I am an orphan at the hands of our worst enemy. It's my first Christmas alone. Not his, surely. But I can tell somehow that he never felt it so keenly as now.
So I stand with him and mourn. For his great loss, for the love he had but never felt, for the parents he never knew. And I mourn for myself-the love I had and will never feel again, for the parents I know but will not be remembered by.
It's a simple gesture, but as I put my arm around his waist and rest my head hesitantly on his shoulder, I can sense that he understands. It's a moment I never want to go through again, but it's also a moment I never want to forget.
And if the day ever comes that I stand by the graves of my own parents, I want him to be the one who stands next to me and puts his arm comfortingly around my shoulder. Because he's the one person that I know would understand fully. Just like I understand him now.