“Melissa! Oh, my beautiful daughter!” my mother’s voice, “I am so happy you are OK! I am sorry, my child. Sorry that I have not been a good mother.”

I pry my eyes open to blinding light. My numb hand serves as a visor. “Mother?”

“I am sorry, my girl. This is all my fault,” her voice perilously close to tears, “it is all my fault.”

I try my best to sit upright, find the courage to face my mother.

“Mom, I love other women, and I cannot change who I am.” I choke on the words, “I cannot live the perfect fairytale life you want for me.”

My mother’s face turns from sorrow to joy, her smile illuminates the room more than any other light. She reaches over to embrace me, her touch gentle.

“I know, my darling. I know, and I will continue to love you either way.”

My mother sits with me in silence. Nothing proves love more than when a parent can fully accept you for who you are. Perhaps Mr Val was right. We only have one life with endless possibilities. Telling my mother the truth had removed a burden I had carried for years.

In my experience of death, I became both the hammer and the steel. The refiner and the iron being refined. The metamorphosis forced me to find beauty in the pain of my existence, to find love and accept it in all the chaos. I only have one opportunity to be precisely who I am. I know that hiding from the truth will only hurt me more in the future. That is the sadness of time — I can’t get back what has been, no matter how hard I fight. I cannot relive my life till now but I can choose to live it for me now.

“Mother, thank you for accepting me, but I want you to know it would mean the world to me if you treat me the same way you have always treated me. The same love, the same care. I am still your daughter, and nothing will ever change that, Mother. Nothing in this world.”

Mother leans in for a hug that I have been longing for my entire life. I can feel her love, palpable, the way I used to feel my father’s. I miss him, but I need to live for her, but most of all for me — the way we were intended to live when we began. I will be myself even if the world disagrees. I will live and love my truth.

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