“Rest Well, Grandpa,” a woman whispers as she drops a simple white flower onto the grave she stands before. She lifts her head and attempts squaring her small shoulders, trying to be strong, but she can’t, not anymore, so they slump as she turns to head back towards her house.

Sliding open the door of her modest abode she pauses in the doorway, feeling suddenly weighed down by the emptiness that seems to echo in the house now. She feels truly alone, and oh yes, she knows her son will return home soon from college, but she lives in the now, in the hollowness that has no concept of time, and a strong grip on such a worn soul.  

I'm so tired of being here
suppressed by all my childish fears

She hates the house when it is like this, or more accurately she hates herself when the house is like this, because it makes her think, because the faces and the voices that eternally haunt her can’t be shut out.

And if you have to leave I wish that you would just leave
because your presence still lingers here
and it won't leave me alone

In her room now, walking to her dresser, she blinks and stumbles as if blinded. But it is not the sunshine from the window that bothers her; it is the bright flashing light in her memories, and voices followed by screams, car horns, and blood.

Her shaking hands at present hold onto the picture of the dying face she sees in her minds eye. Tenderly she slides her fingers across the glass and over the face of a young man, the luminous smile so different from the broken record of pictures reeling in her head.

These wounds won't seem to heal
this pain is just too real
there’s just too much that time cannot erase


She looks him over, the familiar black hair and brown eyes serves to soothe and destroy, for another holds the same features, “Kagome,” she breathes, afraid that the single word will bring down her last string of resistance.  

A sad smile curves on her thinned lips, as she thinks back. She half expects to hear a small girls’ scream, for it seems only moments ago she was holding her daughter, comforting her after a nightmare, fixing her scrapes when she fell.

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
when you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
and I've held your hand through all of these years
but you still have all of me


She wishes Kagome was home, wishes she wasn’t out there fighting monsters and receiving wounds she can no longer heal or protect her from. What does she have now? Her children were her life, the reason she was strong, the reason she wore her smiles. Do they realize what they’ve left behind?

You used to captivate me by your resonating light
now I'm bound by the life you left behind
your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams
your voice it chased away all the sanity in me

She always saw so much of herself in Kagome; sometimes it was like looking in the mirror, and sometimes that wasn’t a good thing. She saw the same cheery disposition, the face that lit up with laughter, the ability to forgive, to love unconditionally, and later the shadows in her eyes she tried to hide with her smiles.

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I've held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me

Somehow, she finds herself in the one place she’s been avoiding for months, and within her she feels that last string snap. She falls to her knees beside the well, gripping the edges as she chokes on her sobs, her body shaking and rippling, knuckles turning white as tears flow out mercilessly. How long she sat there she doesn’t know, but by the time she pulls herself up, she wavers, dizzy, exhausted, and drained. Finally she dares peer into the well, and sees the one thing she has never wanted to gaze at within it: her own reflection

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone
But though you're still with me
I've been alone all along

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears
And I've held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me


One last tear trickles down her cheek and into the water, distorting her view, and only then can she walk away. Outside the well house she wipes her own tears away, and slowly draws a more gentle face on. For even if she can’t let go, even if she still foolishly hopes, she is still a mother; a mother who smiles and wears her worries on the inside.