My body grew weaker and weaker.
I began to slip in and out of consciousness. Every morning when Damien woke, he would hold his finger under my nose to feel for my breath. Only when he felt the faint, shallow puff of air would he let out a sigh of relief.
But this couldn’t
go on.
He went to the palace again to beg the Royal Physician for help, but after every examination, the old man would only shake his head and sigh. Damien cried, holding me, every single day.
He was finally forced to admit it. This time, I was truly leaving him.
On the morning of the seventh day of the new year, Damien sat by my bed, painting my portrait.
I stared up at the dark canopy of the bed and said suddenly,
“Damien, I saw my mother.”
The brush in Damien’s hand paused. He sniffed, trying to hold back a sob, and managed a choked, “Oh?” “She was with my child.”
In my vision, my mother looked just as she had six years ago.
She wore a simple, elegant gown, and by her hand stood a little boy who looked to be two or three years old.
The little boy wore a red tunic, and his hair was tied up in two small tufts on his head.
He called to me: Mama
My vision began to fade. A small smile touched my lips.
“Damien, if there is a next life… let’s not meet
”
The paintbrush finally fell from Damien’s hand.
Outside the window, it had started to snow again.
That day, in the great hall of the Abbey, the fortune stick I had drawn had only one line written on it
And my life had indeed been a testament to those words.
This sorrow is eternal, without end.
