~Saturday 26 December - Cold, morning

Still in Saint Mungos sitting beside my mother, who could not be farther away from me. She might as well have flown across the ocean. The potion that had created for her is not helping at all. She still is locked away in her mind - gone from me while the cancer slowly kills her. Most of my hopes were in that potion. The other draughts that I had found were even less promising. Perhaps I am fighting a losing battle. I know deep down that I must begin to accept it - but it feels so wrong to give up on her.

I thought that I had done the right thing by retrieving the Gobstone set that she had given to me when I was young and returning it to her. Perhaps she may never physically recover, but I thought for certain that I could bring her back through the Gobstones that had once meant so much to her. She was a champion after all. I keep trying to get her to play, but She refuses me every time.

I could accept it if she had simply forgotten - but she views them now as evil. She only thinks this because he thought that all magic was evil. She never used to think such things.

This is all his fault - he did this to her. He robbed her of her self worth - he caused her to shut down - just as he did me. It wasn't enough to ruin her, he had to warp her view of religion and use it as yet another weapon against her. It is no wonder that she fell apart when one of the last things that gave her comfort became something to fear.

This isn't her. She didn't use to be like this.

My mother was always a devote Catholic, even as a girl living with a magical family. He was too of course, and that is how they met - for the church they both frequented was placed perfectly between their homes. She used to tell me how she fancied him - how she would steal glances at him and how he would smile at her from the pew across the way from her. Even now it sickens me to think of it.

She lived in both worlds as most magical families do, but when she began to grow closer to him, so too did she grow closer to the Muggle world - much to the chagrin of her family. She never spoke of them much, but I know that they had disowned her just before she left Hogwarts. Even still, she never let her faith interfere with her feelings about magic. For him, magic was quite another matter.

To him, the words Witch, Spells and Magic were synonymous with the Devil. His hatred of all that he viewed as evil knew no limits. I cannot begin to imagine how he reacted when she finally revealed to him what she was, what I would be.

I asked her once, when I was thirteen how she had told him... She was hesitant, but I wouldn't let it go. She finally told me that she sat him down and explained everything to him just before I was born. He left her for almost week while he went back to his mother's home - he was not ready for such a shock according to what she said. I still have nightmares about it, how it must have really happened...

I am lucky to have been born really, but then what choice did he have? His religion forbids such things. He could have burnt her at the stake I suppose, but then he was always so concerned with what the neighbors would think - which was ridiculous of course, for all of Cokeworth could hear him when he screamed.

He was always so angry - always so resentful to have to be stuck with his evil wife and her bastard born of Satan. He knew that I was his of course, and that only made him more angry. He never let us forget just how evil she and I were.

Evil child. Evil Slytherin. Evil Death Eater. I'm going to be sick. I need to leave this room for a while.

~Sunday 27 December - late in the evening.

The days are long and there is no one that I can speak with... There are of course the Healers, but they do little more than politely nod hello. What would I have to say to them anyway?

So I am stuck here, trapped and alone with my thoughts. Still I am troubled by all that I remembered and wrote about last night. My feelings have changed since childhood of course, but truth be told there is still some part of me that continues to believe. I once thought it all so real when I was young.

I was so certain of it, for she believed it as well and as she began to fall victim to him, so to did her fear of Evil and Sin. It is easy for me to brush it off now - to be frustrated with her for thinking that something as innocuous as Gobstones could be evil, but that is not a fair judgment of me to pass upon her. When I was young I too was trapped by the fear that he instilled in me. There was a time when the concept of Sin and Virtue very real to me.

In my last years at Hogwarts I was determined to be Virtuous. I was convinced that I could be if I worked hard and stayed away from my Slytherin friends. I nearly killed myself to perfect potions and do well in my classes. I tried so hard but once I realized that I could not win her back through Virtue, I fought with far less fury. In my loneliness I gave in and returned to my so called evil Slytherin friends.

I believed that I had fallen when I began to spend my time with them, and when I made love to a Slytherin girl who was not Lily - I thought the most abhorrent of Sins. Stupid - for the only Sin in it was that I did not treat that girl as well as I should have. By all rights she was my girlfriend. And Evan - was it such a Sin for he and I to skip classes to spend what little time we had left together doing something that made us laugh? Was it truly a Sin for him and Wilkes to love one another? Even when I was naive I never believed that. So why did I spend so much of my youth burdened by such an enormous sense guilt? I was naive, I made mistakes but I was not guilty. I not yet really sinned - not back then.

I became a Death Eater and when I left Hogwarts and took my place with them - that is when I stopped believing, not just in Catholicism - but in everything. I gave up and in my hopelessness, I destroyed everything that I ever loved.

It kills me now to look back upon it all and see how foolish I had been. All of that fear induced by something as trivial as religion. It wasn't real.

But it is real for my mother now. I tried to read to her from a spell book - but the moment that she hear me speak of spells - she became distressed and cried out "evil" over and over.

The irony of it - when they all sound so similar. How magical Latin incantations any different from than the Latin invocations of the saints? They are after all similar means to a very similar ends. All of this I know of course because that is how she taught me.

As soon as I could speak, she made me learn Latin. "You will see Severus, it will help you with your spell work and your study of scripture and ancient texts."

She was right of course, and I was always eager to learn. She would insist that I speak in both English and Latin when I asked her for things. She would deny my requests while grinning at me deviously until I asked her for the things that I wanted in Latin. I even had to ask her for my cereal in Latin...

I recited prayers and spells with her in the garden when he was not present. She taught me the names of the saints just as she taught me the names for plants, herbs and potions. Everything I know I learned form her in that garden. It was my favorite place - surrounded by stone walls though it was - it was the one place where we could escape.

So long as she and I went alone - the church was a pleasant place for me as well. I had only heard of Hogwarts and seen it in photographs, but I knew that the church was just a smaller version of the castle. The Latin prayers were practice for spells. We knelt in a stone cathedral with a high vaulted ceiling. We said the words as we knelt surrounded by candles, incense and stained glass. It was The Great Hall in my mind, and It was a place magic in its own way - so long as we were alone with out him.

I really did believe in the things that my mother told me. I believed in the Angels and the Saints - but with all that magic came Sin. In truth we were rarely alone that church, and when we got home, that is when he began to preach...

No. There was never any magic in it. I detest it now as I look at her and see how it has ravaged her mind, body and her spirit.

He was quite insulting enough on his own, did he really have to use scripture to back up his claims? It was absurd the way he would carry on when his tirades became religious. He'd reach a certain point in his anger and cry witch burning bullshit as if we were in some Arthur Miller play. I was never even convinced that he fully believed in all of that anyway - it was just something he used against us.

What difference does it make even if he had? Where is the evil in Magic? Muggle wars fought for religion cause far more devastation than any spell. Religion, like magic in the wrong hands can be used for evil. In the right hands both are a source of hope. Magic and religion are essentially same in the end, but all people like him will ever see is the insignificant differences.

I see no conflict, only ignorance.

There it is. Ignorance is the only true Sin. My Sin was to be ignorant - to give into fear and to have been weak enough to believe Lily was somehow different - and to have told her as much. My greatest Sin was to be ignorant of what he would do when I gave him the information. I did not want to see, and in my blindness...

I cannot write anymore. I just want to sleep now. I'd complain of sleeping in a chair, but I've slept in far worse places. I have no right to complain.

~Monday 28 December - Afternoon, but it is already dark. Storm Clouds. It will snow again

I feel still half asleep, though all I do is sleep. There is so little else to do... Perhaps I am making up for all of the sleepless nights I that I had spent researching healing draughts...

I was asleep just now, asleep and trapped in a dream. Another memory. I I forced myself to wake before it could come to its awful end as it had in life. I thought I had escaped, but now it is all that I can think about.

I was very young, four maybe five - standing with her in the hallway by the front door. "Hurry!" She said in a frantic but joyful whisper, "You can catch me if you try. If you don't catch me I won't be able to show you!"

I was laughing as I ran up the stairs behind her. I tried so hard to catch her, but in the end she had slowed down so as to let me reach her. She was opening the door to her room smiling mischievously. I couldn't wait - "Show me! I caught you - I want to see what it is!"

"OK, but you have to be very quiet," she whispered. It was a game, he wasn't home so it did not matter if we made noise. We played at this a lot, but to think back on it now, it was as if she was training me.

I kept laughing as she rummaged through the closet. The door was open just enough for her to slip one arm inside. She leaned against it almost as if she were trying to coax a wild animal forward - but careful not let it escape. "Is that? Nope, not that one. This - oh no, thats the coat that bites if you tug at it too rough!"

"No it doesn't!" I said barely able to control my laughter. I knew she was pretending, but she acted it all out so well. There was part of me almost did believe that the clothes in that closet were alive, wild and untamed behind that old wooden door.

"I've got it!" she said finally, "Come on, come closer Severus - just don't frighten it!'

"Mum! It's not really alive!" but still I crossed the floor quietly - just in case it was.

"You silly boy, of course it is. This one is. This one is special," she reached all the way in, pulling whatever it was forward.

When she held it before me, I stopped dead in my tracks and stood completely in awe. It was like nothing I had ever seen before in my life. Long black satin cascaded form the hanger - waves of shimmering blue light reflected from the folds of the fabric. She turned it about in her hand and the emblem appeared - the green and silver serpent coiled about upon the woven crest. That was - Slytherin!

"Hogwarts!" I blurted out upon the realization. My mother was showing me her actual school robe. I instantly ran towards it with my arms outstretched. My fingers had scarcely brushed the robe and yet still I could feel it. There was magic woven throughout that black fabric. Frantically I leapt up and down as I tried in vain to reach for the hanger, but my mother held it up high by her head and I was too small.

She only laughed. "Severus, if you would like to try it on, all you need do is ask."

Still struggling - still desperate to hold it I cried out breathlessly - "Please Please! May I please try it on - Please! Oro! I beg you! Please"

"You silly boy. Vey well."

My mother helped me into her old robe, holding it out for me as I slid my arms into the long pointed sleeves. When she rested the satin school robe upon my shoulders I felt powerful. I felt alive in a way that I had never felt before.

"Now let me see you," she said turning me around by my shoulders. I will never forget the look upon her face when she had stepped back - taking in the site of me in her old school robes. "My little boy... What a wonderful Wizard you will be someday!" She truly was proud.

I held up my skinny arms - my hands still covered by the sleeves and ran towards her. Two steps and I'd tripped over the excessive fabric, for it was far too long on me - tall though I was for my age.

"Oh Severus!" She scooped me up, untangled me from her robe. When I realized she was taking it off of me I began to cry. The sudden weakness I felt once it had been removed from my body was unbearable. "Maybe in a few more years. Don't cry little one, I think I have something for you in the meantime."

With tremendous sorrow, I watched as she replaced her robe - hiding it from the world. My robe, when I finally grew into it - but by then I had become a foolish teenage boy - forgetting just how much it really meant. By then all I could think of was how much I hated my need for a hand me down robe. It didn't even last that long. Once I'd reached about fourteen, I could no longer wear it. My mother saved for so long to buy me a longer one... She did so much for me. I knew, I felt the guilt and yet still I feel I took it all for granted.

No, not when I was very young. I took nothing for granted as I stood there was a little boy, eagerly awaiting to learn when she meant when she told me she had something for me in the meantime. Again she fumbled in the closet. Again she pretended the clothing was alive. Finally she produced one of her old shirts. "Lets see you try it on!"

I was hesitant at first for it was no Hogwarts robe, but once she had helped me into it and rolled up the sleeves so that it would fit me, the effect was almost there. She showed me my reflection in the mirror - I looked just like she had in the photographs of her wearing her school robes. "You see," she told me as she knelt beside me - you are magical. Keep it, and wear your little robe whenever you like - but, best not let your father see."

I nodded solemnly. I knew I should have listened to her. But I never wanted to take it off. It had only been a day, but already was so used to wearing it my mother's shirt - my robe. It had become a part of me. He came home. I heard the door - I jumped as I always did, but I didn't even think to take the thing off. His wrath when he found me... I ran to hide behind her - he started taking it out on her, accusing her for allowing me to take her things and wear them - and worse than that.

She tried to explain, but as usual he did not permit her the time to say one single word to defend herself. She did try... at least back then she did try - but it always ended the same way. She would hang her head and cry, and so would I.

After about an hour of it, I was finally sent to my room. I was told to never wear it again.

Fuck him. I hate him.

I cried myself to sleep that night, but I made damn sure that I wore it the next day - and every day after that. I wore it the moment that he left the house, I wore it to the playground, I even wore it to the Muggle school. They all laughed at me, but it wouldn't have mattered. They always laughed at me. Besides, they were too stupid to understand. One day, I would go someplace else - someplace better - someplace where none of them could go - some place where no one could make fun of me again...

I must leave this room and go for a walk about the ward. My mother is not in this room... not here. She is in my old robe, standing in front of the closet, kneeling beside me the garden. She is not here - and I am not here either.

~Monday 28, December - It has been about an hour

She still sleeps, in no way aware that I had even left her, or if I was even here to begin with. I want so much to tell her that he is gone and that he can no longer hurt us - but that will not make her happy.

The loss of him to her is as devastating as the loss of Lily has been to me. Neither of us chose well in our own ways. She loved a man who was not good enough for her. I loved a girl who was too good for me.

I don't even know what happened to her shirt. Mum... please wake up, please.

~Tuesday 29 December - Sunlight, late afternoon.

Were it not for my writing, I would not be able to keep track of the days. They are all the same. In terms of my mother that is. Frank Longbottom, and even Alice seem to have improved to a certain extent. Several times I have seen them up and about, though their speech is still as incomprehensible as that of my mother...

The child visits each day with several relatives. One of I take to be his grandmother. She is always the one that I see holding him - a frightful thing to think for she always wears a large ugly hat with an even larger and uglier stuffed vulture atop the thing. To be a child and look up at such a menacing creature must be terrifying indeed.

He cries when he is brought into the room. His mother does not speak, but insists upon holding him when she sees the boy. Watched closely by the grandmother she is always permitted to hold him, then and only then does the boy stop crying.

I still experience the same terror at the sound of children crying. Still I see that room and hear her son. Still, ever since the night that I picked up Draco to comfort him I am far less afraid when the Longbottom boy cries.

How darkly fitting that it should have been the Malfoy boy through which I overcame my fear of small children screaming. The Death Eater's boy I could hold in my tainted arms. To him I could sing as if he were my own, but her boy I could not even bear to look at - let alone embrace.

This is going to be a disaster, my looking after her son.

~Wednesday 30 December - Cold blue Moonlight enters the window...

"Mum?" I ask of her as I write.

She stares blindly at the ceiling in response. Part of me wants to flee from this room and leave her, just as the same part of me wants to leave Lily's son and abandon him to his fate. He is Potter's son, and he... Were it not for me he would still have a father. For her - for my guilt I will force myself to do this. And sick though she is - I still have my mother, which is far more than her son will ever have so I will force myself to stay in this room.

Forgive me, I do love you Mum, but I am afraid. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to look after you. Please. I beg of you. Tell me how to look after these children. Who am I? I am a selfish git, a liar, and a murderer. I am no hero - here to look after her son. I wasn't even a good son to you.

~Thursday 31 December - The light fails, and with it the year

She spoke to me, or so I thought she did but I was only dreaming. I wish I could recall what it was that she had said, but the only thing that I can remember is that I dreamed about her garden. I dreamed about the night we spent there when I'd first come home from Hogwarts over the Christmas Holidays of my first term.

I remember that day well. The train ride was long, but Lily and I sat together in a train car with two of the girls with whom she'd shared a room. They did not much care for me, and I cared less so for them. She knew this of course, but still she did her best to keep the peace and we all played at Gobstones for much of train ride. I'd let her win always, and she knew. She smiled so sweetly...

At one point as we neared London, she left me and the girls to visit with another set of friends. I'd begun speaking with one girl about Bins and finally we'd found some common ground. We began to laugh as old friends, and so we were. Mary was her name. Mary MacDonald. She was always so kind to me.

So we talked and laughed for quite some time. Everything seemed fine until the door to our compartment slid open. I turned towards it - smiling for I had expected to find Lily. What I did not know was that the other girl had been friends with Black. It was he, Lupin, Potter and Pettigrew who stood at the door.

"Mary, Esmerelda, you might not want to stay for this." Potter announced. My chest tightened and I instantly felt a dark sickness take me over. I forced myself to appear angry to mask my terror.

Esmerelda giggled and ran off. Mary on the other hand stood up defiantly and told them that she would find a prefect if they did anything bad. My wand was drawn but Black disarmed me and cast a full body bind curse on me before I could act. As promised Mary ran off to find a Prefect. Black produced a pair of scissors. He cut off several handfuls of my hair while Potter started punching me. One blow was so hard that it knocked the wind from me, I thought I would suffocate before long - then just as my eyes began to dim, Lily, Mary and a tall Hufflepuff Prefect named Dale stood behind them. He freed me from the bind and took several points from Gryffindor - as if that mattered. The pain subsided, but the shame of my having been left so helpless in front of Lily stayed with me the rest of the way.

My hair - it was humiliating. Lily picked up several handfuls and together with Mary we attempted to reattach it with spells. I smiled and pretended not to care - I even laughed about it. I pulled my hood above my head and smiled. "See?" I said, and we all began to laugh. "You can't see - my hair is fine!" It was too much, I had to hide my eyes beneath my hood for a moment in order to fight back my tears - but I did it.

We reached London. I did my best to straighten myself out and hide the bruises, but I was still a mess. I remembered how mortified I was at the thought that my mother would see me in such a state. I didn't want her to know what I was. I never told her how the others treated me. She had no idea that I was such an outcast and a freak even at Hogwarts. She had no idea how had been a weakling - permitting the others to rough me up so bad all the time. There would be no hiding that from her any longer - not once she'd seen me in her torn robes with half of my hair gone and my sickly skin full of bruises.

God bless her, she smiled and pretended not to notice. "There you are Severus!" She said calmly. She wanted to pick me up and to hug me right there, I could see it in her eyes but she held back so as not to embarrass me in front of my classmates. I could see something else in her eyes - Pity. I hated it when the professors looked at me with pity - but this was far worse, for it was my mother. One look at me, and she knew. She knew I had been attacked and that this was more than a random occurrence. It was over. She knew what I was.

She did her best to hide her alarm. She smiled, ruffled up my uneven hair and said, "Mishap in Charms I see. Don't worry, My roommate once had such an accident. Singed off half of her hair when she'd meant to grow it long for a boy that she fancied! As it happened, I knew the perfect potion to repair the damage - and I can get all the ingredients needed to brew one tomorrow." With that she lead me away home.

I feared what my father would do, then just as my mother opened the door to our house, she turned back to look at me and gasp. I feared she had noticed seen another of the bruises left upon me from the attack, but those were all hidden beneath my shirt. "Your hair!" she cried out gleefully, "It's grown back all on its own! Severus, you truly are magical! Now you head upstairs and change out of your school things and I'll make you some tea."

I didn't believe her, I was too afraid to run my hand over my chopped up hair again. I had to look for myself. Sure enough, my reflection in the mirror of my dingy room showed my hair was as it had been. Long, black and lank. It reached evenly to my shoulders inspire of what Potter had done.

I felt more than magical, I felt powerful. Potter and Black had tried to get one over on me but my hair had a will and a strength all it's own. After all they had done - that they could never take from me.

I was happy to have my hair back, greasy as it was for it was mine - but changing into Muggle clothing was something that I had been dreading for day. I had just finished dressing and was putting my books away when I heard the door slam. I leapt in fear and nearly dropped a full bottle of ink. No. No - not him. My heart sank. They were fighting.

He was shouting for my mother. He'd forgotten that I was coming home - or so he claimed. He was screaming because she had not reminded him of this. She stood her ground, telling him that she had reminded him. He wouldn't hear it, he just screamed at her until finally she gave up could only cry in response. I had to eat with them after that. He didn't speak to me, in fact he pretended not to notice me at all. I felt too sick and afraid to eat, I just kept waiting for his next outburst - afraid that any sudden movement would set him off.

Time passed in slow painful intervals until he pushed his chair back from the table - the earth shaking scrape of his chair upon the kitchen floor. That ominous sound still haunts me. He announced that he was going to bed early, than stomped off to his room slamming the door behind him so loudly that it shook the house. My mother and I sat in silence, waiting to hear the door upstairs slam before either of us dared to breathe.

A lengthy pause, a tremulous whisper, "...Did you want me to reheat your stew Severus?"

A longer pause and an even more timid voice "...Yes please..."

After that we ate in almost peace. We did our best to get on as if nothing had happened - we even smiled a few times. Then with no warning my mother stood up suddenly and ran to the window. At first I couldn't understand, but then I saw it too - Snow!

We needed no words at all. Swiftly and silently she ran to the wardrobe in the front hallway to retrieve our winter coats. The with no sound at all, we slipped outside into the frost filled garden.

All of the herbs and rose bushes which had seemed so lifeless earlier that day came alive as the snow kissed each branch with new life. Everything seemed to shimmer with light and though we stood in a Muggle garden, I swear there were pixies and magical creatures flittering all about us the night air. I could hear the music of harps and celestas. Magical - that is the only way to describe it in words.

I watched my mother dance about in the falling snow as thicker snow flakes began to fall upon her roses. I joined her with no hesitation.

Noticing the child she knelt and put her arms around me as we watched the snowflakes fall.

Then it came to it - my dream - the part that I think I was meant to remember. I was not meant to recall the horrors of that day but what she said to me that night. For she knelt then, praying before the small stone statue of the Virgin Mother that she had placed in the garden.

I don't know what had come over me. I had seen her do this countless times over the years, but as I stood by her side and looked down at the statue of the woman crowned with glistening snowflakes I could no longer bear it, I had to know -

"Does she ever answer your prayers?"

My mother looked at me expressionless for a moment then she smiled and took my hand, "Yes she does. She sent me you after all."

"You asked for me?" I repeated, for even then I found such a thing hard to believe.

She held my hand tightly with both of hers. "Of course I did! Why ever would you doubt such a thing?"

Because I ruined your life, I might have said. Because if it had not been for me you would not have been forces to reveal your secrets to him. He would never have learned that you were a witch and he would never have - but I'd said it, "Mum, am I evil?"

"No Severus!" She said sharply, looking me deep in the eye. "You are not evil. Never let anyone tell you that. The is no good or evil. Nothing is ever so simple. Even healing spells can be used for ill in the wrong hands, just as the three most unforgivable of curses can be used for good under the right set of circumstances."

But my fears were in no way allayed, for even now that makes little sense to me. I wanted to believe her, but I could not. Something else had been gnawing at me for as long as I could recall. "The Serpent. If we are Slytherins - I don't understand, the Serpent. Wasn't he a serpent?"

"No." At this she took me firmly by the shoulders. "He only took the form of a serpent. More to the point, he did this to put Eve at ease and to seduce her. Would he have taken the form of a Serpent if it was truly something to be feared?"

"No," I said, though at that time I did not fully understand.

"No." she went on, "Serpents are not monsters. They are merely a part of this Earth just as any other creature." She looked at me knowingly, and there was such a light in her eyes... "Eve was no perpetrator of Original Sin either. They may say that of her - but they are wrong. Eve sought knowledge, and there is no Sin in knowledge - only responsibility. She carried the weight of that responsibility, as should all who attain such knowledge. Understand that Severus, Eve did was no Sin. Just as women bring life into the world, Eve merely paved the way for the rest of humanity. Eve did what Adam could not, for he was too afraid to take on the responsibility." She took my hand again and drew me down beside her. "Pray with me now Severus, pray in thanks to the Mother and to Eve. Pray for the grace of the Mother for the courage of Eve."

She was right about Serpents and Eve I think. But her courage it seems, never came to either of us. Yet when I recalled that snowy night in her garden just now, I recalled one of the few times that her faith ever brought me comfort. And while I may no longer find solace in her Catholicism, I think that I understand now just how much it means to her. She loves it as I do Magic. Did I not write earlier that there is no conflict - only ignorance?

I have been the ignorant one this time. I have been blind to her and to what she truly needs. I know now what I must do.

~Friday 1982 1 January - The sun has nearly escaped from the clouds

I went back to the house this morning. This time I did not return with anything magical, just her Rosary Beads. I placed them in her hand. For the first time in what seems to be ages, she opened her eyes and smiled. She seemed almost to see me.

I sat by her side, and I prayed the Rosary in Latin with her. She was able to do it. She spoke clearly, reciting nearly all of the prayers with me. It was not potion, and it was not Gobstones. It was not the cure that I had hoped for, but it was enough for her and I must accept that. I had been thinking only of myself. She needed to pray just as I need to perform magic and make potions.

She just wanted to pray...

She is dying. I will lose her no matter what potions I can give to her.

And if she never improves beyond what occurred today, than I must accept that somehow as well.

It hurts.

Tomorrow begins the new term. I will be very sorry to leave her, but I must be strong - for I must ready to face the students. It is the last thing I want to do. I am so heart sick with it all.

At least now I know how to comfort my mother when I visit her on the weekends. That will have to be enough for now. I have to be strong - for her.