My entire world shattered. My ears were ringing, my breathing shallow, I stood there in a completely different world, because surely this couldn't happen. I saw her last week and she was getting better. She was laughing, smiling, telling us that she loved us, and her being gone was impossible. Impossible!
"We need to go." Dad was shaking me, but I did not respond. This wasn't real. It couldn't be real. She was getting better.
"We need to go!" Dad dragged me out, and suddenly it all came back together again, reality wrapped itself around me and I was back in the world.
Lilly is dying.
Mom is dying.
No, she's not. This was just another false alarm. This is nothing special, this is nothing important. I will be able to talk to her soon.
She was there. She was lying down. A man I recognized but could not remember was holding his face inside his hands outside the door. I heard him mumble something but could not make out what. I was not concerned with that man. I was concerned with my mother, who was completely still. She was lying there in peace, but her soul had long been gone.
This was important. I would not be able to talk to her, ever. She was not dying. She was dead.
I could not hear anything the doctors were saying. I could not understand. Everything sounded like gibberish. I did not cry, I did not do anything. What could I do? She was gone. My favorite person in my life was gone. Dad was holding her hand, praying. I did not want to hold her other hand. When I touched it, the hand was too cold to be her. I wanted to tell Mom that I loved her, not the lifeless body before me.
I ran away for the first time. Dad was calling my name, but I did not listen. I returned to a household that was now two instead of three, slammed the door of a room that was supposedly mine, and screamed. Not cried. Dad opened my door, the lights were never turned on. He asked why I left and I had no answer to give him. I went to sleep, hoping that this was all a bad dream but knowing full well that it wasn't.
The next morning was seemingly like any other. Dad was awake, made breakfast, and did not talk to me. She hadn't been home for a long time, but she always called around breakfast time. Even on her worst days, she called. Today, there was no call. It was silence, one of the few mornings he wasn't singing, until Dad began crying, the first time I had ever seen him cry.
She was buried the next day. Dad did not want a funeral. He wanted a celebration of life, as he insists it's what she would have wanted. This has been the only thing Dad and I have agreed on in a long while. Even so, I don't want to attend. I don't want to do anything. I cannot enjoy the world if my world is dead.
For the first time, Dad asked if I wanted to go to the mountains. I said no. Even the mountains would feel empty now.
I remember Mom once saying to me that I do have talents, and some of them may have not been discovered yet. She said she was lucky to find her love for performing so early, and that Dad had the same luck. She wanted me to go to the school where they met, to see if I would grow into it. She insisted that if I felt out of place after one year, I could drop out. She wanted me to at least try. Now it had been a year, and I had never felt more isolated. Not only from the other kids at the school, but from my family, my life, from everything.
Dad won't let me leave. He wants me to carry on the family legacy.
In my dorm, I cried for the first time. My mother was dead. She had been dead for a week now. A full week of my life went by without her. Now it was time to start hitting the other milestones ahead- two weeks, a month, a year, time was now being measured by the end of her life. This place, this family legacy I'm supposed to fulfill, means nothing. I can't dance and I can't sing. I can act. I had been acting for my Dad for years, but I hate that kind of acting. I can only think about how much I do not want to be here. Even if I could leave, what would I do? Where would I go? Home was too empty, I had no friends to run to. I was in a void of loneliness I could not escape.
Dad picked me up the following weekend, for the celebration of life. He wanted me to at least say hi to the family, to be together with them in a time of mourning. But, in the car ride home, he pulled over. He wanted to talk for the first time.
Mom's death was no accident. The lung cancer was from black lung disease. She was the elemental master of Earth, and she had spent time underground to train her power. The man at the hospital was a general in the war, and Mom was ninja working for the elemental alliance during that time. She was only fifteen, the same age I am now. After the war, she fought side by side with the man, protecting Ninjago and her family.
When I got to my Dad's house, I said hi to my family, and then went to bed. There was no point in staying awake. After the celebration of life, Dad had a performance, and could not talk. Not that he would have, anyway.
There was one day at home before I had to go back to school. It was the worst day of my life. I did not see Mom at school, her lack of messages to me was eerie, but now, in a house without her, it was so much more real. I could not take it. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry, but I was drowning in my own thoughts. I could not breathe, I could not speak, not when I was here, in a place where I did not belong and with the remaining parent that did not want to talk to me. He never asked if I was okay, he never sat me down to talk about the parts of her life we both knew about, aside from the single conversation in the car, where he dropped the long-forgotten family secret onto me, and did not answer any further questions. I doubt he would have known the answers.
I stood outside his room. He was mourning too; he did truly love her, and needed to grieve. I just wanted him to acknowledge grief together. He never talked to me with her here, and her death still wasn't enough of a reason to talk. I was never good enough for him. I was never good enough. I am not good enough.
That night, I wanted to try again, but he had gone out singing. He cancelled none of his performances despite what happened. The show must go on, both of my parents would insist.
"Let's go." He said, the next morning, not a "Good morning" or a "How are you". He wanted to get rid of me. I never really knew my Dad, and now I have no reason to. He dropped me off at the school.
"Hey." I heard as I was getting my bag out of the back. Maybe he finally wanted to speak, but my hopes were nonexistent.
"I'm glad you're going here." He said, "Send me letters, okay?"
I nodded. He smiled, and drove away. No love yous, no hugs, no goodbyes.
I wanted to leave. Not just this school, but everything. I wanted to run away from everything.
Why don't you?
What was keeping me here? Dad did not want me home. I had no motivation, no joy, no feeling, everything was out of reach, and feeling like an alternate universe.
Why not?
I ran away for the second time. Dad would not notice, he was going to be traveling with his group for the next few weeks. Even if he was home, I doubt that he would notice.
I went to the mountains. It had cheered me up before, but that was when I had my world with me. I knew it would be empty, but anywhere else would be even more empty.
I climbed up, with no real goal in mind. I just wanted to get away. To imagine she was here with me. I wanted someone to talk to. I just wanted to talk. I wanted to have someone. I did not want to be alone anymore. I did not want to be in this world anymore without her. So many thoughts were racing around my head, I was almost about to cry again. I pulled myself up on a ledge, and saw a man. It was the same man who was outside the room at the hospital. The man that Mom had been fighting alongside for years.
"Hello there." He said. He was on the older side, definitely older than mom was. Older than mom ever will be.
"How did you…" I began. Who was this man? How did he know my mother? Why was he here, of all places? Why does he keep reappearing in my life? How do you become happy when you have lost everything?
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Maybe that is a question for me to ask." He asked, instead of answering. Who was I? "But why do you climb the mountain?"
"I…." He wanted to talk.
"I just lost someone. My father should be sad, or angry, but he's just...he's…" my voice began to break
"Yes?" The man said. He heard me!
"He's always out with his group singing and dancing, he's never home, leaving all the chores for me! With her gone, I know it's up to me to be the responsible one. He acts like nothing's happened. How can he sing and dance at a time like this?"
"Grief takes many forms." The man replied. "Some sing and dance. Some climb mountains."
"Why did you climb the mountain?" I asked.
"To find you, Cole."
He took another sip of his tea.
"She told me this was your favorite place."
"How did you know her?" I asked.
"We were good friends for the longest time." He answered. "She spoke highly of you."
I smiled. I felt a brief sense of home.
"She told me you were ready, Cole. It is your choice, it is a hard job. She...the lung cancer, it didn't come out of nowhere. She risked everything to save the world. I need you to know the risk. And Lilly...she died-"
"A hero." I answered for him. "She died a hero."
The man smiled.
"Are you willing the take the risk? To be a ninja, and the master of earth?"
"I am." I answered, regaining the confidence I thought was long lost.
"Very well, then." The man sipped the rest of his tea and stood up.
"We begin training now." He stated. "You can call me Sensei."
Things will be alright.
this story is dedicated to Kirby Morrow