"The Keyword of the Week" | TEARS

I'm Rany, and I'm a seventeen-year-old girl. I read in today's newspaper that my mother's friend Tina committed suicide last night. A year ago, we were neighbors, and people used to say that she was the most beautiful woman in the town.

  
I am watching from my room's window. It's raining outside, and I feel the rain always comes with sadness beyond words! But today, the shining drops of rain pulling my mind toward a world with a strange sadness. I feel like I'm at the point where I can't hold back my tears.

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My mother explained to me the meaning of death long ago. I remember things like suddenly falling asleep while watching a movie on TV. My mother is fond of writing poetry, and she also likes the rainy season. Maybe that's why she named me Rany. My mother once told me a story about messages from the clouds. My mom says that when God is sad, he sends clouds of tears to show his disapproval.

That day, my imagination became even wilder as I had never thought that I lived with my mother in this house, and what was there in this world that I could not solve with the help of my mom?

My mind went back to Tina. I am so sorry that Tina betrayed us. I feel so angry. How did this beautiful woman come up with this idea, and how did she light the fire in her body to turn herself into a pile of ashes and pieces of bones?

I now remember what she said once, "Not to love anyone to the point of self-condemnation."

My mother and she used to talk to each other and I would often stand near them. Even when Tina used to cry, my mother would talk with a smile. At that time, I liked looking at my mother even more, although she is not that beautiful a woman. Tina's eyes, ears, and lips looked perfect as if an artist had done his work on her body.

Ah, just two years after my mother's marriage, my father died, and my mother became a widow. My mom told me my father used to call me Meg. People believe that she did not remarry for my sake. But some people feel she did this because she truly loved my father.

Let me tell you one thing: I remember once my mother told Tina, "I did not remarry for selfish reasons. If I had met a man who was like Rany's father, I would have married. But I know that I will never find anyone like him."

As soon as she said this, my mother's eyes lit up, and Tina said you had the benefit of a good experience, so you are lucky, but most people in the world like me are deprived of such good fortune. While saying this, Tina had tears in her eyes.

My mother softly said, "Teena, your tears are not beautiful at all, but your face is."

She further said, "Never consider love a compulsion but there is only one rule to get true love, "Be worthy of it."

Tina said, "There are always two categories of people in the world, those who are born to give affection and those who are born to receive affection. And the suffering will belong to the first category of people in all possibilities."

Then she looked at me and said, "Rany, I'm jealous of you. You were born to receive love."

I asked in an innocent but mischievous tone, "How will you know that? I am not married yet."

Once she went to a cinema with us, and she saw her husband sitting with a strange woman in the movie hall. I realized that they did not expect to meet us there. It was a working day—Monday.

My mother wanted to see this movie and came early from work to watch it. We had to pass through them to our seats. Tina looked at her husband in disbelief. My mother gently forced us to move forward.

Her husband's eyes were fixed on the screen. He pretended, or maybe he did not see us. The reason for the man's silence was obvious. Tina also started looking to the other side, as if she did not see her husband.

That day, when the movie ended, Tina was crying, suppressing her sobs with a handkerchief. All I felt was an astringent, piercing feeling in my mind, like the tip of a sharp pin.

Yes, one day I will also become like my mother.

The owner of Inner Strength has clear moonlight, which does not spill herself into tears.

I didn't feel sympathy for Tina; I felt deep hatred for that man. An intolerable abomination. I felt grateful to my mom for those words written in golden letters in my mind: "There is only one rule in the world of love; you have to be worthy of that love."

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The rain has stopped, but I have not moved from the window. Then my Mom came and called, "Come on Rany, you have to have coffee and get ready. Today we have to go to the bookstore."

My mother always opens the closed doors of my mind with ease. She creates infinite possibilities in my heart. Mother, oh my mother—she knows how to stop my tears.