(Terabethia Riverstone)

Though I think it would be hard to understand for some people, it is true that even though I had much faith in my mother when I was young I greatly doubted my own worth.

No, I am ashamed to admit this, but I didn’t just doubt, but rather completely believed in my own lack of worth, to the point that at times, (times usually exacerbated by constant bullying) I felt like I wished to die.

My mother being perceptive, would always notice when I felt like this and would come to me, to try and comfort me as well as try to if not remove at least lessen my feelings about how my life was worthless.

“Life is always worth living.”

She would say among other things, but that was usually the main topic, and the other things were usually just reasons to support why she thought that.

But although sometimes I could be comforted, most of what she said, especially that line, seemed to be just useless air to me. For she wasn’t experimenting what I felt, for if she did wouldn’t she know that life is definitely not worth living?

The main reason why I didn’t become truly suicidal and actually seriously attempt to seek death, was besides not wanting to make her sad, by leaving her alone, was partly because of her other advice that occasionally accompanied her mainstay.

That was: if I continued to live, it would be like a slap on the face to those who didn’t like me.

So when she said what I basically took to mean complicate condonation that I should live to make my enemies lives miserable. I took it this advice to heart.

And used it ever more so then any other of her more commonly said advice of course including her said catchphrase of.

“Life is always worth living”.

I must say, that although, I couldn’t do much about the bullying, and for good reason. I was outnumbered and weaker after all, and I never gave in and submissively became a plaything of those who would abuse me, unlike most of the other low hierarchy children.

Instead I would always find myself ending up struggling and fighting back no matter and despite how futile it was.

I possessed a most sharp tongue and since being pinned down by at least four others I would be unable to fight back with my body, I usually fought back with my words and mind.

I do not know if those hatchlings knew it, but many of the incidents in which they got in trouble with their own parents and one time with the guards as well, they were at least partly and indirectly because of me. Or at least I took certain steps to make it so the incidents were more likely to happen.

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Though I don’t know if they knew about that, they defiantly knew about the more obvious rest through my actions, and they couldn’t stand how I would thwart their authority even thought it was only in the smallest of ways.

So, unlike their other ‘friends’ and play things I think they truly did hate me, and as I hated them back, anything that made them miserable seemed like a good thing to me, and clever as I was, for all those times that I directly got my hands dirty, I was never caught.

I don’t know how I would have reacted if they ever faced me one on one, for they never did. But having to come to know myself a little better over the years, I think I may have fought them…if things had turned out only slightly different and I like to think that I’d probably would have won.

Perhaps they instinctively realized that, even if I did not at the time and so as to bring some actual logic into the unknown reasons as to why they had treated me and some of the other lower hierarchy’s that way.

For as , I only much later reflected on, if I was as weak, talentless and worthless as they insulted me to be, why did they always face me in groups only?

With the narrow selfish sight of my youth, I had always assumed that the reason my mother never protected me from the bullies was because the majority of them were higher hierarchy then us with higher hierarchy parents, that were impossible for her to face.

But now with the wisdom of age, and the caring tender heart bestowed by motherhood, I know that this can’t possibly be the case.

First and foremost, as a mother she couldn’t possibly be able to just stand aside and let those hatchlings harm me if the only reason holding her back was just that she was scared of their parents.

Even if I discount what I know of her and more importantly her abnormal bravery she could have bought for me private tutoring like so many lower hierarchies did rather than letting me go to partake of the free services whose location allowed the bullies to track me down.

Worst came to worst she could have decided to move to a different clan or even another kingdom and we could have hitched a ride on a well-guarded supply train.

So, the only answer remaining is that she didn’t protect me, and purposely let me face those bullies for her own reasons. Or according to my more likely theory is that even if she wanted to protect me she couldn’t.

How couldn’t she, you ask? Well this is where her ‘sight’ again comes into play. Maybe she saw the future, or at least a version of the future, that was more likely to be avoided if she did as she had done. Or perhaps it wasn’t something as strong as a vision and she just felt that she shouldn’t do anything.

But either or any way, because of what she did or rather what she didn’t do, growing up was an experience that I continue to carry to this day. The wisdom I gained from that suffering, is always guiding my decisions, and it is the reason I am who I am.

By the time I had deduced this knowledge, any anger that may have appeared had already dulled to the point that I could only remember my bullies with nostalgic fondness and amusement. And for my mother, I only felt what I had always felt, a warm glowing feeling of love and awe.

For no one, still living knew my mother as well as I did, and even I did not know her well enough that I could be anything but filled with admiration at the person she was. And even when later some of her mystery faded because of me being able to relate and empathize because of what I had experienced, neither did the love nor the awe ever do so.