Growing Part 10:
Liliana – The writer!

People say, the people who are appearing the most little amount in a story are always the writer. I wrote this. I, Liliana Trudeau wrote all of this down. I'm not 10 anymore... I'm 30. I collected these stories of... my parents... my sisters... my aunts... uncles... cousins... grandparents... friends... and everyone else over the years. Every year there was a little something to add to my collection.
After I came out of hospital, I realized how precious life was. I asked my mom, my aunts and sisters, to tell me, what they're life has been. What they think, the aim in life, the purpose of life is. Their answers are part of these last few chapters.
This story had been reality and it's not just any story. It's the story of my mother's life. It's white, red and black. White for all the good that has been done and created. for all the new lives which were made. Red for all the love which was spend over the years, but also for all the blood which was spilled for the greater good. It stands for all the sacrifices and passions. Black for death, for the end and for the evil, no mater if the newest ultimate evil or a little demon, just trying to get to the book. And it stands for many transformations we all went through. But to say it very short: It's about life. About love. And about death. That's what all lives are about, to get born, to love and then die. And it was written because a beloved woman was pulled out of our middle. Mom died a week ago...
This book is dedicated to my mother, the most amazing woman I have ever met. The most adorable and strong woman every existing. She sacrificed everything she was over and over again for the people she loved.
After each of us was born, mom made a box for us, just for us. She used all kind of papers, colors and inspirations to decorate them. They're each equal. In my box, I mostly collected little notes and stories, stuff I wrote over the years. The day mom died, I got that box out, locked myself in my old room and started to read them through. I remembered all the wonderful moments. All the lovely words. I remembered her smell, how it felt to have her arms wrap tightly around me and tell me, that everything was going to be just alright. But, the pain just wouldn't go away. I didn't go to her funeral. I couldn't. Mags and Anna were almost ripping out the door to my room just to drag me along, but I just couldn't. Instead I was... sitting here, up in my old room, on my desk and started to form stories and in the end this 'book' out of all the notes I made. I barely noticed how the time passed and now, I had to realize, it's already been a week my mommy is gone.
My sisters tried to get me out of this room. Tried to make me eat, tried to make me sleep. Magical or not. They didn't make it. My husband tried to get me to move on. To care for myself again. He didn't even have a tiny chance from the beginning. Even the unborn child, inside of me, tried to get me magically out of this room. Without any success. I can't take all these stupid words to try to calm me down. I don't wanna hear an 'I'm so sorry'. I don't wanna hear... anything anymore… all I seriously wanna hear is my mom knocking on the door, calling me, to come down for dinner. I want my mom to kiss me goodnight. I want my mom to pamper me and the baby. I want her to make me rest whole day. I want her to feed me all day. I want her to buy a billion things for the baby. I don't care what she does, as long as she's just there. But my mom's gone. She won't do any of these anymore, and I wished a few times already this week, she had taken me along. I now know, what mom meant, when she once told us, that it was the end of the world for her, when her mom died. It's seriously for me.
I expected her... to be there for me... especially with the baby. And she was. She was fussing all over me for the past month. I actually hated it. And I hated her for buying toys and planning the baby room, when I was only 4 months pregnant. She didn't do this for Mags' kids... but then again... Mags, Robbie and their kids don't still live here.
And then, there this morning was. It started as day like any other. After we breakfasted... I was able to relax for real after a month again, since mom, this morning wasn't all around me... but something was wrong. I could feel it. I could feel the strange atmosphere. I could feel the spirit of the angel of death slowly possessing the house. It was almost noon when dad and I slowly noticed, there seriously must be something wrong with mom. She never slept that long. We went up to the bedroom and there she layd. She looked so much like she was just sleeping. She looked so peaceful and happy; as if she was having a great dream... and then we try to wake her up... but there's nothing… she never reacted. She never woke again. She was simply gone. Just like that.
Dad didn't cry. When realization hit us, he just went out of the room without a word and called Mags and Anna. Afterwards the manor and then he called Kevin, my husband. He never shed a tear when he called grandpa and grandma. He seemed to have frozen completely. At least emotionally. When Kevin came home, he looked at me and I saw how his heart broke at the image. He gave me this look... this... 'oh my god'-look. He got out of his jacket and then approached me with the words, 'I'm so sorry...' he tried hugging me and that was when I retreated into my room. I don't know how dad handles all of this... I don't know how he could handle it this well that day and I don't know if he still handles it this way now. But to be honest, I'm scared dad will do something stupid. He had this blank expression. This stone cold voice. He had been nothing like the loving and caring father I always have known him as. He's also the only one, who didn't bug me to come out of this room. But he learned that I'll come to him, when I'm ready... I'm done with this and I still don't know if I'm ready... when I started this, I thought, writing it all down, would be the same like keeping mom alive. But it still didn't bring her back.

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I heard a knock on the door
"Lily?!"
I closed my eyes tightly and finally got up. I walked to the door and opened it. For the first time, since mom died, I opened the door and with that I opened myself up to someone else. And I did it, because I wanted to, not because someone wanted me to do it. I looked at this face I loved so much. The face I don't remember ever spending a day of not looking at. Automatically tears sprang to my eyes as I saw my father standing in front of me. He looked so small and exhausted and his eyes still had this cold stare. He looked like he was strong for everyone. But I could see he was tired of being strong.
"I miss her so much daddy"
I whispered, my eyes never leaving his, even though my vision had started to cloud with all the tears which left my eyes. He looked back at me and I saw how his eyes softened and then they slowly started to tear up as well. I could clearly see that I broke him completely down with those words, but instead of saying anything, he just wrapped his arms around me. At first I was trying to fight the hug back. I wasn't ready for this yet. I was too scared of all the emotions which would cook up, but only after a few seconds I allowed him to hug me and I hugged him back.
"Me too"
he answered me a few minutes later, with a voice, which told me, he was feeling just like me. He couldn't hear those false and slimy words, which never had helped at all. He didn't want to tell anyone he was doing okay, when he really wasn't. He was sick of putting on this stone mask, when he just had lost the most precious thing to him ever. I knew, dad wasn't there to get me out. He was there to get into with me. To hide form the world with me. He locked the door after him and then just hugged me intensely again. Eventually I pulled away. I looked at him again and saw not my father standing in front of me, but this completely broken man, which had lost just about everything. But almost at the same time I realized, I could give him a little of that everything back. Turn this, almost stranger, back into my father. I retreated a step and grabbed for the printed pages, which were neatly bound into a book alike shape, laying on my desk. Without another word I handed the script to him. I watched dad take it, open it. I saw him reading the first Page and slowly saw him sitting down on my bed. I sat down on the floor right next to him and watched the stranger slowly, word by word, sentence by sentence, page per page, becoming my father again. I watched his every shrug. His every tear. His every smirk. His every smile. Every stifled laugh. My dad didn't take any break. We sat for hours there, barely moving, and I just watched my dad taking in, what I wrote. He never looked at me or spoke a single word to me. If he spoke at all... then to himself or to my mom, who he seemed to believe, was being in the room as well. Chapter per chapter I started to get more and more tired. To give my dad, a little of my mother, of the love of my mother back, finally made me able to feel again something else than sadness and loss. When dawn again was taking over the world for a new day, dad closed the book and turned it around in his hands and looked at the first Page. His hands running over the title 'more than just a woman'. I expected him to say something like 'nicely done, but, hell, you wrote about everyone, but what about you?' But there was nothing. I sat up more straight and laid my hand on my father's knee, but he didn't say anything. He just starred at the title.

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Dad left a few minutes ago. He didn't say anything other than two words, before he put up his facade again and closed up to me as well. I could see how he retreated into his own little world and fled from me as well. Even though it all just happened a few minutes ago, I think I'll never forget that expression, those words and what my father meant with it.

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"Thank you"

The end

AN:
Andy said 'thank you'. And he meant 'thank you for bringing Prue back into my life'. I hope, I did the same to you guys out there as well.

But I gotta say 'thank you' for something completely else. I gotta say 'thank you' for staying 'tuned' for so long, for such a long time. I gotta say 'thank you' for the support you always gave me and I gotta say 'thank you' to charmed, for being there in it's first three seasons and inspiring me to this.

THANK YOU!

on the other hand I gotta say, I adored myself for these last 10 chapters and I thought it'd be overwhelming to see the responses... but I barely got one review per chapter, which shows me once and for all, that my work here is done. No one seems to want to read things of me anymore and so with these last words, I'll finish my 'career' as writer. Take care, people!