Lower Topia • Chapter 1

Episode 7
A Tear Drop. A Jar.

Charlie cried.  “Charles, I do love mom.  I miss her.  I miss her arms cradling me.  With her finger I remember that she would carefully scoop up a tear as they rolled down my cheek. She would then carry the tear to the tiny walk in pantry, and store them in my ‘Tear Jar’.  As much as I looked for that jar in the pantry I never found that it.  I miss her. I hurt so much to know she was in so much pain; frightened.” I listened but could only stand there in silence. I couldn’t lie to him about Mom’s pain, her confusion. It happened to us together while it was my turn to care for her.

“I remember that jar, Charlie.  I remember her doing that. So carefully gathering my tears; gently, so as to not break the drop’s fragile surface.  She would disappear from my bedroom. I heard rattling of jars, unscrewing some jar of its cover, then screwing it back on.  The sound was easy to recognize, the pitch was clearly telling me when the top was coming off and then back on. In my mind I saw this to be true.  It was an image I still had on that day I packed up their home for the last time; selling it in 1996.  Charlie, I really did gave the pantry one last look for that tear jar.  It wasn’t there Charlie.”

“It’s our jar Charlie. Our memory. It has been a part of my story since you shared it with me.” I tried to help him, but like that jar, my ability to comfort Charlie was only what he was willing to believe. “She was afraid, Charlie. She woke up in the hospital’s Recovery room. Strange and unwelcoming. She was trying to put the pieces together, but her life felt broken to her. I knew that. She was alone until I arrived. How long was she awake before I joined her. I don’t know. But, when she saw me she stopped crying long enough to ask me with her eyes to help her end the pain. I just didn’t know how to comfort her.”

“I didn’t believe in that jar full of tears. It’s been way too long for me to believe that it had the ability to soothe a broken soul. I believe her soul was broken Charlie. She was exhausted. She was loosing her ability to remember any good day in her life. All she had left was this day.”

I realized, and I believe, Charlie would have understood when I explain it to him, that that jar made him happy because it was Mom’s Band-Aid; a make believe covering for a wound that only existed in his mind. And it worked. Charlie would stop crying as soon as the tear was removed from his cheek with Mom’s gentle finger. “That night, Charlie, I realized the only person that had any ability to heal pain with a make believe jar was Mom. No one else, Charlie. So, I guess all that I could do was let her cry. I didn’t know what else to do, Charlie.” I lowered my head in shame and despair that was so late in being offered and seemed only offered for my benefit alone.

Charlie, I still remember you, the kid that stood by the door, but now you are all grown and don’t stand there any more.

If I try to go back, and change the way I felt about my life as you. I would probably leave you alone. Because the thing I would now have inside of me, that was inside of you, is now full of life, my life, that I know today.

I know now that I am worth so much more now then what I believed and was told yesterday. I know you have tried to be best, the best of the rest, but truth be told it wasn’t to happen, the way you know.

But the best is the best of what you had. And it is so for me today, as well.
Then it’s time to just let go, ring the bell, and just leave hell.

So I will not go back in time, change the way I felt about my life, and just be free. Oh, but then wouldn’t I still have inside of me everything what you brought to me, to my life, for yesterday, and for life today, just as I see.