Memories of Joy & Regret - Lilac
Snow fell in the form of small rivulets of white that softly tickled the air before reaching ground. I would've almost called it beautiful or graceful, had I the will to. But it just didn't seem right. I wasn't supposed to feel that way while I was mourning, or so I had understood. It wouldn't really matter, as I wouldn't have been feeling anything anyway.
The snow would've been pretty to any other pony from where I was sitting. On that little hill on the outside of Ponyville in the middle of winter, almost anything was pretty. But the one reason I was up there was so that I could try to be alone. The hoof steps slowly approaching behind me nullified whatever hope I had.
Twilight Sparkle had always been a family friend of my mother’s. Apparently the two went back a ways. But I wouldn't really know; I was only the foal.
My first instinct was to turn around, but I held my position: sitting on my haunches and waiting for the mare to speak or make a move. After a couple moments of silence, she did.
Her voice haggard and- was that tiredness I detected in her voice?- she spoke. “I assume you want to be alone Bright Spark, and I don't blame you. I'll try to make this quick. Is there anything you want to talk about relating to the accident?”
There was plenty I wanted to know. Why her? Why the other victims? Why did the world seem so cold without her? These thoughts were immediately silenced. I had no time for the pain.
Instead I asked, “I heard something about an error in weather management. What actually happened?” My voice was more blunt and raspy than I had remembered. I must not have talked for hours.
"Yes, your mother and the other victims were sent to stop a stray thundercloud which had been missed by the other pegasi-“
“How do you miss a thundercloud?”
She seemed at a loss for words at the interruption. “… I don't know. I don't work with weather. Anyways, your mother and the others-“
“Were killed by a static buildup. I already know that.”
I could tell I had struck a nerve by being so callous with my words. I could practically taste the negative emotions pooling off of the mare. I didn't really care. I didn't care, and that's what scared me the most. But it felt good, in a way, not to care. I didn't really feel any pain. It was like her death had flipped a switch in my mind. Maybe it was a way of coping.
Twilight seemed to sadden, as I could hear her drooping. “Yeah, I know. I'll leave you alone. Just know that if you ever need somepony to talk to, I'd be happy to.”
She turned away and I could hear her hoofsteps slowly track down the hill. Suddenly she stopped. I could tell she had turned around again and was debating on whether to say something else. I didn't want to know what it was, but I stayed still anyways.
"You know your mother would want you to be happy above all else right?” A pause. I could tell she was really struggling to get the next words out.
“Serve her memory well, Bright Spark.”
Twilight was gone a few minutes later, leaving a frigid and cold colt sitting on a snowy hill. It was in this moment when all of the emotion came back in the span of a blink. It was an infinitely short amount of time, but it stretched on for what felt like days.
She was gone. She was gone, and all of the light that I saw in the world had left with her. My mother wasn't ever a very charismatic or “loud” individual. She didn't have to be. She… She was one of those ponies that could just walk into a crowded room and have a presence, you know? It was like your eyes had to look her way.
She commanded so much respect without ever being more than just a humble soul. I didn't know how she did it, and I wish I could have learned.
That couple days ago was fine at first. I woke up, got out of bed, and went downstairs. I greeted my mother with a “good morning” and ate breakfast. I'd said goodbye to her as I was about to leave for high school. Before I left she chided me about that one mare I had been thinking about asking to a dance. She said, “Life's not gonna wait for you, and I’m not going to let you be alone for the rest of your life!” I knew that she was joking, but it resonated anyway. As I went to leave, she shouted, wishing me a good day at school.
By approximately 3:00 pm that same day, my mother was dead.
After a few hours, the chilled air and the lowering sun became too much for my standing still. I had to move, else I would start shivering. But I couldn't go home. I knew that I wouldn't be able to go back there until absolutely necessary to avoid freezing to death.
And so I waited. Not for any particular reason other than pure spite. Anger against the cruel world that had taken something from me. Something important and wonderful. I wouldn’t admit it to myself at the time, but I did feel something: hate.
Eventually the cold won out. As the sun set and the lampposts around the town began to light up, I found I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to leave. But I was determined to do one more thing.
I had no wish to visit the grave of my mother, but there was something I wanted to see. Near the border of the town (also not coincidentally located near the location of the accident) sat a small collection of flowers and portraits in memory of the victims. It was dedicated to those that had lost their lives, and I had yet to see it.
So, I went off, climbing down the hill and trotting across town. The cold didn’t leave, but I did feel a slight bit warmer than when I was standing still. So, I had that at least.
I soon arrived, and was surprised to find another pony already sitting down in front of the memorial. She was a pegasus mare around my age; I had seen her in school when we were younger and recognized her fairly quickly.
She just sat staring at a portrait of one of the victims, an older male pegasus I assumed to be her father. What threw me off, was that she wasn’t crying or sobbing, or even unhappy. She was smiling warmly, as if she had a good day.
In my youth and stupidity, I quickly became the slightest bit angry at her demeanor. Here the mare was, remembering a dead relative with a smile upon her face.
Trying not to let it show, I arched over to where she was and asked with as much a voice as I could muster, “Did you know him?” It came out gruffly.
Turning her head slightly towards me, she never lost the smile and never let her eyes leave the portrait. “Yes I did. He was my Dad.” She spoke in a happy little whisper, as if she was telling me a joyous little secret.
I’d had enough with that attitude by now. “Not to ask a personal question, but… why aren’t you sad like the rest?”
Turning her head back her smile lost a little of its enthusiasm.
“I did care for him very much, like you did for your mother… But he taught me a long time ago that I should never let sadness affect me like other ponies. Instead, I’m happy for the time we had together.”
That struck me as odd. Why shouldn’t we feel sadness? But something in her statement caught my attention: the feelings I had for my mother.
“I believe the term you're looking for is lack. It's a lack of caring.” I said, indignantly.
She quirked her head and smiled a little, as if something about me was amusing. “You don't really believe you can pull that manure on me, do you?”
“Excuse me?” I was shocked at the amount of gall she had.
“I can see by the way you carry yourself. You're lying.”
If I was angry before, I was infuriated by that accusation. How could she say that to me? She didn’t know me!
I had convinced myself that I was numb. She saw right through me.
Just before my anger boiled over into words, she turned and looked directly into my eyes. You know, that look of a pony who knows you better than you know yourself.
After a moment she spoke. “Sit down with me.”
My brain malfunctioned on the spot. She was the strangest philly I had ever met. But I complied and sat down with her. She spoke to me of memories she had of her father, the good and the bad. We talked for hours about our parents.
In the years that followed, she became my closest friend, and suddenly, I didn’t feel so sad anymore.
I was chilled down to the bone. The wind was so cold I swore my hooves were going to fall off. The breeze that caused this drifted lazily through the trees, rustling their near-leafless branches and causing a cacophony of shaking noises. It was beautiful in a way, if only in the way that winter was. Still didn’t change the fact that I was cold as Tartarus. But the look on her face was well worth it.
She was cold too; I could tell by the way she tried to hide her small shivers. She could try, but in the end I was too perceptive not to notice the small shaking and wobbling in her legs. But if anypony could smile like her, I had yet to meet them.
Lilac was, in fact, the reason I was out here. She had claimed months earlier that we had to come outside and into the center of town the final days before Winter Wrap-Up, if only to enjoy the last fringes of poetic tranquility that the season offered. I hadn’t been too keen on the idea at first, but like always she had managed to convince me.
I really couldn’t have denied the idea without feeling cold-hearted and saddened. It had been years since my mother’s death and she was leaving Ponyville after Winter Wrap-Up; her aunt had decided to move to Manehattan. When I had heard, I wanted to curse life for being so cruel. Taking my closest friend away from me like that? I couldn’t imagine a worse punishment.
But if she had taught me one lesson, it was that I should always take things as they come, and deal with them in stride. Instead of finding reasons to hate or anger, find happiness. Instead of seeking the darkness when times were rough, seek the lightheartedness of optimism. She taught me this time and time again, starting on the day of my mother’s funeral.
So standing out in the snow in the middle of town wasn’t the worst thing I could imagine. As I turned my head to look at her, I once again took in that smile. That way, when nopony was looking, her eyes danced across the individual flakes of snow falling to the soft ground, taking in each moment of life and never letting go of them.
Later that day, I reflected on what I regretted most about our time together. I knew that every moment that I was with her only reaped joy from my heart. But I had spent too much time isolating myself over the years I had known Lilac. I suppose it was because of her close-relatedness with my mother’s passing.
I never blamed her for it, of course. But she always reminded me of the mare who had raised me. Maybe it was their same won’t-take-no-for-an-answer attitude. Maybe it was the fact that both had given me hope and happiness where I had previously found none. It could have been that I felt that I didn’t have anything to offer in return. Any of those reasons led to the same conclusion: I hadn’t been with them enough.
I always had a mental excuse to stay away. I was always so busy when in reality, I had nothing to do. With my mother, school had always been a reason to spend most of my time away. Routinely, I found myself pushing away from them, because in all honesty, they scared me.
I was constantly and secretly worried that I wasn’t good enough for them, telling myself that they were too happy and vibrant that I couldn’t ever hope to be like them. And so, I didn’t belong. Not in their world, not in the same room sometimes.
It was only after they were gone did I realize how much I would miss them. And how much I wished I could’ve stayed with them as long as possible.
My mother was an amazing mare, but she was no longer with me. But Lilac I could still describe. I could still remember her every mannerism, from her laugh to the way that her tail would twitch when she was thinking. I knew I was the luckiest stallion alive to have met her.
She had left me a different pony than I was before. I was changed for the better. But now, all I had of her was the gift she gave me:
Memories.