Her came to her his heart breaking

He came to her struck down by bewildering pain and loss.
He came to her for comfort as all children do, seeking out the reassuring warmth of her love that flowed constant and unbroken towards him, unaltered by his actions, successes or failures. The first hours were awkward as they negotiated their new relationship to each other, not helped by the foreign surroundings and unfamiliar atmosphere. At first there was anger, resentment even. Unspoken but reflected in his short sentences, quickly taken offences, shrugs in the place of answers. But then it became better. Especially when they reached home to the modest house with its warm furnishings.

He walked into the kitchen as she bent over the kitchen counter cooking him a meal.
It evoked memories. As a small child he would trail her curiously in the kitchen observing her every move, asking about things he didn’t quite understand, his big black eyes noticing every small detail, waiting for the moment when she would finish her task and sit him on his high chair with his own special little patterned plate in front of him. He saw her now and the familiarity of the posture and the recognition of the care broke down his barriers.

"Ma" he said brokenly and opened his arms to her. She held him to her, head reaching only as high as his chest, her heart cracking open with the paradoxical joy of being reached out to and sadness at the loss reflected on his face. She felt the breath shudder through his large frame.

"Why, Ma, why?" The tension in his shoulders was incredible as he held himself back from breaking down, trying hard to be the man, pretending he had it all under control. It was just a part of life after all, just a failed relationship, just heartbreak, just a simple shaken self belief. It was too much as the tears coursed down his cheeks. For the first time since she knew him the tears were not from anger, frustration or rejection. They were born of pure sadness. An agonizing sense of loss.

She felt the warmth of his tears on her face. The knowledge that every mother holds about her child was present within that moment. The years of striving, of failure real and perceived, the hopes that rose and were dashed again, of trying to hold on to self belief despite the being of the outlier, the odd man out, the strange one.

She cried too, full of compassion and sad understanding. She had no words, no reassurances, and no wisdom to give him. She cried with him as he bid goodbye to one stage of life and ushered in the next, and felt their collective tears pool on her face, warm and full of the essence of life, in the space between them.