C'est La Vie, Cherie, JaNae Emily Ann Boswell [pdf e book reader txt] 📗

I looked down at my mother, she looked so peaceful and so serene. Her chocolate hair perfectly curled around her face. Her makeup was immaculate, not creepy or doll-like. You know how some morticians like to make woman look like dead emotionless clowns. I told them exactly how to make it so that she didn’t look like she lived life as a cheap woman because she was far from that.
Organ music filled the church as my mother and I’s favorite hymn “Amazing Grace” played melodically. The black veil covered my mascara streaked face. It hung down concealing my eyes, which was the worst of my appearance. My cherry-red Revlon lipstick was smeared along the silk handkerchief that was once my mothers. It was an antique in our family, very old and passed on from generation to generation. It was white and silk with red roses. Along the bottom of it was Amatheson embroidered in golden letters, our family name. I cried but not like any other daughter would cry if they were at their mother’s funeral. Hard or hysterically.
No I cried slowly and gently, with no hint of sound. The only evidence of remores were the various tears that streamed morosely down my pale face. I screamed though inside my head, crying piercing wails. I’ve always been the type to keep it on the inside.
The church smelled like the inside of an old library book but with a hint of incense. Rosemary I would say mixed with dust. People with allergies sneezed to themselves and bless you’s followed right behind like a moths to a flame.
I could hear a lot of people crying, louder than I had been. When I say I cried silently I mean no sounds escaped my lips. I wasn’t like my Aunt Deb. She was my mother’s deranged, melodramatic sister who was practically screaming to herself. I couldn’t help but stare at her blankly, completely numb and annoyed. No words escaped my mouth, even as people passed me giving me their condolences. I just gave empty stares and nods in thanks. Most passed by crying and it was as if I wasn’t paying attention to any of them. To me they were just faces; sad void faces.
I turned to look down at my mother again. She was still tranquil. Yes, still soo serene. Never again would I see her smile or curious blue eyes. Never again would I hear her laugh at my antics with unquestioning bewilderment. I would never hear her sing along to her favorite songs or watch her dance.
Now her face was just peaceful, eyes closed; mouth still. My eyes in that moment staring at her were beyond desolate. They were robbed blindly of emotion as my face held no hint of expression. I wondered to myself would my face look that serene when I died. Would I have a passive death even though I lived a tedious life?
My mother and I were total opposites even though we could have passed as twins. Sometimes she would joke that I was her long lost twin, reborn into her child. I thought if I was then I was other part of her that my grandmother couldn’t have because they world had enough with her. She was a great person and a wonderful mother. She was funny always joking about something or teasing someone.
My mother was unimaginably alive, always running around to do something whether it was baking, dancing or redecorating for any holiday that was coming up. She even put up pictures of presidents around the house on presidents day. She was also very caring and loving; she would always volunteer at the retirement home and animal shelter. She was utterly spontaneous, always taking me on random trips like to learn how to surf or to the local crafts fair.
One time we’d went to the market and they were having sales on bags of grapes, you know the kind used to make wine. They were 5$ for a 10lb bag and she bought 50$ worth. Then she got two great big wooden buckets and threw the grapes into them. She took off her shoes and squashed the grapes into wine. I couldn’t but join her, not because she begged me but because it looked like so much fun. That was my mother though always wanting to have a good time. She bottled and sold the wine then used the money she made to rent out a lake house one weekend for us. We spent it painting, fishing and reading eachother our favorite Shakespeare poems.
She utterly outspoken, always speaking her mind about everything because she thought the world was beautiful. She would always tell me “Grace, never go through life with your eyes closed, because then you will never see the beauty in life.” I just ignored her knowing I never would be like her because she was everything I wasn’t.
Once when I was younger she wouldn’t buy me a spring jacket instead she made me one. It was a coat of baby blue cotton cloth with patches of yellow lilies, pink roses, white daisies and purple lilacs. It was incredibly colorful, like a rainbow of amazing flowers and awfully beautiful. I wore it to school, timid and scared of what the other kids were going to say. I predicted that they would tease my homemade jacket. That fear soon turned to anger when the children loved it along with my teachers. I never wore it again after that day; instead I burned it by the pond afterschool.
At times I resented my mother because she was everything I wasn’t. As I got older I grew particularly bitter towards her carefree life.
When I would nag her, she would just smile, put her hands on both sides of my face and say “C’est la vie, Cherie.” I would always roll my eyes at her because she always used that quote to try and diffuse the argument. She never really did ever argue back with me, she would just sit there as I bitched at her. She used the quote to try and prove a point but it never worked. I understood her attitude how she would think everything happens for a reason because thats how life works.
Deep down she knew how I was and I hated myself for it.
Sure she would try to encourage me to smile more but I was just too indignant. She always told me she loved me more than anything and though I would roll my eyes I knew she did. I could see it in her eyes, deep within her soul that she loved me more than life. To her I was the most gorgeous, fascinating creature on earth. There were days I could be looking like death and just by the way she looked at me, I knew she thought I was beautiful. Never did I tell her that I didn’t think I deserved her love, though I did all the time.
My mother was stunning in the gist that she was incomprehensibly gorgeous. She was tall and statuesque; a real leggy, lean framed beauty. She had long chocolate brown curls that hung long and flowing around her face with feathered bangs like Farah Fawcett. She had big ocean blue eyes that looked positively lovely against her naturally smooth skin. She had long elegant fingers which always seemed to be painted with ivory nail polish. She smelled of daffodils and baby powder.
Once again I was the opposite. I was lanky, small and incredibly skinny but most of all normal. I had regularly black hair though, I was guess I was lucky in the sense that I got her curls. Though they weren’t flowing and beautiful like hers, there were just black typical waves. My eyes weren’t big or beautiful, hell they weren’t even blue. They were average, brown and tiresome. I was pale, no matter how much time I spent in the sun, which was usually never long. I was still deathly pallid.
I look down at my mother now and she still looked the same. She is still beautiful and peaceful; still so content with the life she lived. I loved her more than anything and now she was gone.
Cancer.
It stole my mother’s beautiful smile, her laughter and the light from her eyes. Now I look down and she is gone. As I’m left here standing alone, listening to our favorite hymn. The world is slowing down as I look around and stare numbly at people walking by smiling, nodding or crying. Everything ceases to exist and no one else matters just my mother and the fact that she’s really gone. I just sit smelling the rosemary, letting the dust tickle my nose.
Suddenly my overdramatic aunt tries to grab and hug me as she bellows out ridiculous cries.
That’s when I lost it.
I violently pushed her away and screamed. It wasn’t a scream of words or yelling; it was a high pitched, nails across a black board kind of scream. A “Don’t fucking touch me you stupid bitch,” kind of scream. It was a letting out all the agony, regret, and painful remorse I was keeping inside me scream.
The organ music died down and everyone’s heads turned to stare at me. I never liked being the center of attention of anything, it’s the reason I burned the coat my mother made for me. All the faces gawked at me with wide eyes; some filled with tears and others with shock. I realized my hand was balled into a fist where the handkerchief was but it wasn’t my lipstick painted on it. No, it was my blood from my nails digging into the flesh of my palms. I got up and turned around in front of everyone so they could all see me.
I looked over my shoulder at my mother and all her beauty. In that moment I felt regret more than anything. The tears came again, uncontrollably down my face. I was her only child. And though I resent and envied her at times, I loved her more than anything. I loved my mother more than life, than myself and now she was gone. So I vowed from that moment on I had to love myself as she loved me. I had to love life as much as she did. I promised to carry on her name and make her proud, but first make myself proud.
I grabbed the handkerchief, kissed it one last time then whispered the first thing I had truly said and meant since she’d passed at the hospital, “I’m so sorry mom.” With my fingers delicately touching her cool hands, I bent and kissed her beautifully calm face.
Part of my soul knew that she was with me on this day because without her spirit I wouldn’t have made it this far. So slowly I bent and whispered to her lifeless body my last words, “C’est la vie, Cherie.” With that I looked at the woman who had given me life and loved me more than life itself. I looked at the woman who loved me indisputably, even with my faults, though