BENTON's MOTHER

 By Clara Duong

 Fraser stared at the leather-bound diary, his thoughts elsewhere and as he opened the book, something fell from the musty yellow pages to fall onto the ground.

 Bending over, he picked up a piece of yellowed paper on which an uncertain hand had scrawled writing.

 "My beautiful blue-eyed boy Benton," he read with a sense of growing disbelief.

 "My heart is aching for you now as I know that I must leave you. I watched you yesterday as you sat outside in the snow, staring fearlessly into the horizon, your gaze unwavering and your courage unshaken. You don't really know what's happening do you? And yet you are still so brave that I wish I still had the strength to take you in my arms. You are the best part of me and I grieve, knowing that our time together has been so short and that you will grow older and forget your mother.

 Your father will leave you his journals, his thoughts put to paper. I confess that I have never had his inclination to write my innermost secrets where they might be judged by others. I have never regretted this so bitterly until this moment. How I wish that I could have written down how it felt to carry you beneath my breast, to see your first steps as a child- to see your steadfast determination not to cry even when you were hurt.

You were such a good baby Benton - looking into your wise eyes as I nursed you was one of the greatest joys I have ever experienced.

 I worry for you, Ben. Your father is a good man - he has much love in his soul, yet I fear that he will be unable to express his love to you. He is a man who keeps his counsel, who values self-containment. He told me he loved me for the first time yesterday Ben. He has nursed me through my illness - I have always known deep in my soul that he loves me, and his love has sustained me and yet I never knew how it could feel to hear the words until yesterday. And yet he only told me that he loved me because he was certain I slept, unknowing that I lay, exhausted in his arms, listening with every core of my being to his every word.

 I wish I could be here to answer your questions, Benton. You who are so filled with quiet curiosity and wonder. I have seen that you are like me and can hear the beauty and the million joys in the silence which fills a cold winter night.

Yes you will take your faltering steps into this world without me. I know that you will be hurt and I chastise myself for leaving you. Women will hurt you - can you ever hope to understand their ways, Benton? you who are so guileless and naive. I anticipate your pain and know that there is nothing that I can do to ease it or protect you from such sorrows.

 Do not forget me Benton - know that your mother loves you - and that her heart shrieked with all the pain in the world when she knew that she must leave you. You will be strong, you will do good - and you will suffer for it. Understand that your father loves you and be patient when he does not express his love for you in words. My Robert is a jewel among men - even though there have been times when his lack of loquacity have driven me to frustrated silences.

Remember what I tell you Benton. Be true, steadfast and strong - and do not go outside on a cold day with your hair wet.

 Your mother.

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