'To raise a child who is comfortable to leave you means you've done your job. They are not ours to keep, but to teach them to soar on their own.'
It took England a long time to understand why they had left him alone.
Why wouldn't it? He was still a new mother then, slowly working out how to handle rebellious teenagers and crying children, while balancing the work of an empire on top of it. He hadn't thought that they would be any different growing up. They would still be waiting for him to visit, to bring them new riches and more importantly for them, new toys (lovingly made) and they would play all day in the sun and never worry about a thing, while England watched, and felt a peace like no other.
He himself had grown up alone, so alone. He didn't have anybody, constantly having to fight and kill and die so many times just to be able to wake up and restart the cycle. As far as he remembered, his childhood was not a childhood. He had grown up so fast, that by the time he had an established monarchy he was already entering his early twenties, surprising even France, who had remained younger in body than him. (And boy, did he have fun with that!)
If he dug, really dug, he could almost feel his mother's arms around him, humming a lullaby he sang to his own children, half remembered, fully soothing. He had sworn that his colonies - his babies - would have a full childhood, full of play and happiness, far away from the war and death he was still encountering as an empire. He made sure that every night they had soft sheets and a plumped pillow, faces peppered with kisses and ears full of whispered 'I love yous' as they drifted into dreams, no doubt full of more play and excitement.
So when they had decided they wanted to grow up, he had been amused, then incredulous, then horrified as they called for wars and death and destruction. He couldn't fathom why they would leave the security of his arms, why they would hold guns and shoot and be shot at, why they would expose themselves to all the miseries of being a country, of being alone. He just couldn't understand why.
He knew now. It was because of that security, those lullabies, those kisses and hugs, that they wanted to grow up. They were sure that their metaphorical wings could spread and fly, and if they couldn't, of course mummy would swoop in and catch them. They were comfortable leaving him because they knew everything he could teach them. They knew all that he knew about being a nation.
It still hurt, and it always would, to a degree. He understood that his babies had to move forwards. He was their beginning, but they needed to make their own stories now, their own lives, and to do that, they had to leave him at the opening pages of their lives, and turn to the next one.
But he'd always be there, concealed in the corners of the page, between the written words, in the margins, imprinted forever on their lives. And that, that thought, gave him peace.
22/08/18: Ack! Sorry! It was Eid the other day so I got caught up in festivities... Late Eid Mubarak to you all!