Of Fathers.. and loss

If little girls are the promise of the future then little boys are the protectors of such. I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on what it means to me to be a year keeper. Not what it meant to Trayu, or what it means to Tayran. I am not focused on what Fonce thinks I should be or what my elders expect of me. I would have no answer yet if the Ubar asked me to explain myself to him.

I am Asria, widow of Trayu, mother to Lei, keeper of a wonderful secret.. but a year keeper? I think I prefer to paint the memories rather then memorize the years. I have no idea what Tayran will say when I try to explain this to him. I hope he will have some understanding. I am a caretaker. For children, for the fire, for the stream and for the memories.

My mind was a whirl of all this when Tug arrived. He looked solemn and perhaps even slightly bothered to be here. I could understand. He likely wanted to be home helping his own family, why should he be helping me? A perfect stranger who already had a guardian. Also came with him, quiet and happy. He smiled for me and I let him and Lei get into some of my charcoal bits and scraps of paper that had been torn from books in a recent raid.

I wasted little time before I sat down with Tug, just eight years old but so full of questions. It was electric, his need to know, to do. I showed him the leather straps, dry and cracked, that I needed worked over and oiled. I showed him a pile of rope I needed mended. Simple tasks that took a strong hand but not a strong mind. I wanted to gather up his attention for myself, coax a conversation from his heart.

And I did.

The conversation Tug and I had was very private, very personal.. too personal to repeat even now. This morning I met a boy but by the time he would leave me he would be a little bit more a man that before. I take no credit for this, it was all his own. He simply had to look inside of himself and see the glimmers. The glimmers of a father he never knew.

"When you think of him, what do you see?"

"I see hands, strong hands."

"When you think of him, what do you hear?"

"I hear laughter, my mothers laughter."

I smiled. He smiled too.

Children are sometimes so much wiser then we give them credit for. We talked more, long past lunchtime, nearly past supper. Also and Lei had to find their meal at Magdas fires for Tug and I did not hunger for food. Eventually though I heard Cana calling for them and I rose, my body was stiff from the sitting and the work. Tug jumped up, his ears pinkened. He was likely, I thought, to be embarrassed by how open he had been about his father. I had not needed to prod him very hard. I think he may have been a little anxious to discuss these things with someone outside of his family.

There was so much on those boys’ shoulders that I was inspired by his ability to stand so tall. I had heard him express his desire to care for his family and I reminded him that, like Fonce cares me Lei and I, Ayguili will care for his mother and him. He only shook his head, he knew but it did not matter, it was time to take his place as the man of the family and I think.. I think I understood.

Tug was losing faith.

How hard it was for him to lose not only his father but then every man he came to rely on after that. They all left Tug, left him to try and be strong and proud. I hugged him, probably to his dismay, and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. He was such a child.. and such a man. I am not sure I am good enough to be given such a task as great as painting him a memory. I do not know if I am.. magical enough.

After he and also left and I got Lei settled down to sleep .. I turned back to my stretched leather and my paints.

I worked until the harriga was nearly silent and then.. I worked a little longer.