This piece is...strange, yet I loved writing it. It came to me suddenly, and before I knew it, I had laid it out before me. It's about a lot of things. And it's about none of them too... It's hard to explain. I wish for you to enjoy this, perhaps take something from it, or just read and wonder.

One of the things I have come to accept is that you never stop thinking about it. You never stop thinking about the death that you have witnessed, of the person who had spoken to you only moments ago before they fluttered away without you knowing they would. Even if you see it, even if they are clinging to the edge of some piece of sharp metal after a horrible explosion, holding tightly to a man who was desperate and wanting to save someone, and even if they fall, it doesn't sink in until much later. Like when you're alone and have just tried to kill that same man, only to feel the weight of guilt crush you when the moment is gone and the man has just saved you. And then you think of them, the person you had done it all for, and you feel so sad knowing they would not have wanted you to commit murder for them.

Not at all.

Years later, I realize this. I look back and know it wasn't for my mother that I was trying to kill Snow. It was me. A selfish act that I prayed would be enough to end this horrible pain in my chest. To make my mother's body falling into a blackness less frightening. As if, by handing out death, it would seem less cold, less painful, less everything. I wanted to escape it so I tried to thrust myself into it. And Snow was my scapegoat. My target. I wanted to fill him with my hate and rage and crippling sadness. I knew without knowing that he would let me. I knew that he'd let me bury a dagger into his chest because of the guilt he was carrying. He knew he was not free from it, that responsibility. He had led my mother there, brought her to her death, and we both knew it.

Even afterward, when I was not as hostile, a part of me held on to that hatred. It was not as strong as before. In fact, it was tamed and petty compared to the deep and suffocating mass it had been before. But the hate provided a wonderful facade. With it, I could remain connected to my mother. However wrong, however disgusting, and however much it showed my terrible weakness and cowardice, I needed it. Without it I felt she would fade, like everything else my life had been doing.

Somewhere along the way, that hate turned into something else entirely. Love. Affection. The oaf was a blessing, not that I'll tell him so. He doesn't need to know anyway. The man knew, even then, how to light up a room. He was forcing himself into my heart, wearing smiles and trying so desperately to fill the hole left by my mother. I would see though, when he thought he was alone or that no one was staring, the guilt creep into his eyes. The blue irises would water, tears never escaping him but still there. Or he would sneer at himself, shaking his head and going over it again in his mind. I could tell when he was...it was not hard. The slightest darkening of the eyes, the way he would glance at me when he was done.

I could picture it too. The constant fall made it seem as if my mother would never reach the ground. She fell back into darkness, into this place I didn't know and couldn't comprehend. Snow was like me, holding onto Nora's death as a testament to her life. It was all that was there, that last image. Of her arms spreading out as if to fly, of her hair blowing in all directions from the force of the many explosions.

Of her green eyes closing for the last time.

I've tried to talk to him about it before, and even prompted my father to do so, but neither of them seemed to warm to the idea. Snow wanted to fester in his guilt whereas my father seemed determined to hold only what he wished of my mother. Or maybe he wanted to bury the hatchet with himself? Or...maybe some part of him really does hate Snow, regardless of his words in our home before everything fell to pieces. I don't think I'll ever ask him.

But I've realized something. Something so important and unreal that later, when I'm no longer alone or with anyone but Lightning or Snow or my father, it seems ludicrous. Yet it's there. Maybe I am closer to her now then ever before. I think of it, often, of the way she was spread out as she fell to her death. Where she fell to where I couldn't see her and everything was so frightening and terrible that it made my insides squirm. But in the darkness I was forced to walk forward, to learn and grow and have these wonderful friends. This family really, that sprouted from her disappearing into infinity. Sometimes I can even her whispering, telling me that I've grown so much and that she's proud of what I've become. A ghost of a moment, the slightest breeze, but it's there. She's there. And in this way do I feel closer.

After years of going down this path, of reliving the moment and the ones that followed before and after, I think I start to understand. There is the time when my mother picked me up in her arms, swinging me around and cooing at me as I babbled nonsense. Of my mother as she fell away into a place I could not reach, a place that was dark and frightening and so filled with pain and unknowing that I had to turn away. Then of the new moments. Of Vanille as she hugged me and I felt safe for a moment. Of Sazh as he tried to pull me up and show me the way, careful and secure in a way my own father could not be. Of Lightning as she shoved me forward and forced me to be stronger. She showed me how to be better, how to make something of myself. Of Fang as she ribbed at all of us, yet stood as a shield, willing to bear the weight of strikes to protect what she had once called, "a new family."

Of Snow as he tried to smile through his pain, saying he was sorry and that he deserved to be punished.

All these moments tie together and form me and, in many ways, my views of my mother and all my loved ones. Of the precious people I am afraid to lose or have lost, that disappeared where I cannot reach them or are watching with me as others go beyond.

I think of that love my mother promised and for once she is not falling to her death or sinking into darkness. Instead she is standing in front of me, holding out a hand. She is smiling, just a bit of her teeth showing, and her eyes are as soft and warm as I ever knew. There is something in her eyes that goes deeper. She looks at me and sees something, comprehends something I cannot understand. Cannot even name. And she places a hand on my cheek and whispers in my ear, "I am so proud off you Hope." And I feel my chest explode with warmth and pain and so many other emotions that I choke, but she smiles again and says she loves me. She loves me. I'll close my eyes and bask in it, bask in this glory once denied me, but quickly reopen my eyes so I can see her. See her the way she is supposed to be seen.

Then, for the first time in years, she is not surrounded by death and unknowing and primal fear. Instead she is just mom waiting to see Hope even though he's late. I can look at her, the knot in my chest lessening, and touch her once before she disappears into infinity again. I can feel her even now, watching me, cheering me on, or just smiling. I look up and know that she is nowhere near the darkness.

One day, I want to share it with Snow. And Lightning. And my father. These people who are so precious... I want them to look into that place that stretches on into forever and feel the warmth that I felt. The warmth I still feel. I want them to see their own loved ones and release part of that tension that they never knew was there. I want my father to say goodbye to my mother...then go and remember her for her. I want Lightning to see her too...and Snow. I want Snow to look in, I want him to see Nora, and release that guilt. Let it out so it can fall away in a place that s more than capable of containing it. I want them all to release those other burdens they hold, however heavy or light they are.

But I want a lot of things.

Maybe someday I can show them. Maybe they'll even reach it on their own. But...I can look now. I can do more than that. The picture under my bed can sit on the small bedside table instead, my mother and my father and a younger me smiling back. I can look and feel the tears, but keep them there. I won't hide them away. I will not mourn the loss of what was, not when I am holding what is.

And someday, when I touch infinity and feel the strange knowing, I can turn to my mother and smile, wondering how I never knew it before.