Missing Rose (9781101603864) Read Online Free PDF Page B

be only added to her confusion.
    In the hope of finding some answers, she read through the letters. Then, she picked up the first one again and began to read it carefully a second time.
    L ETTER 1:
“O BJECTING TO O THERS”
    14 February
    My beloved Mother,
    Outside, lightning is flashing and thunder rolling. I’m reminded of the nights when I would curl up in my bed shaking with fear, longing for the refuge of a mother’s comforting arms.
    Just when I’m about to be overwhelmed by your absence again, my father comes into my room to confess that you are alive! Holding out your address to me, he says I can write to you.
    The storm outside suddenly becomes my friend. The lightning bolts become camera flashes photographing my joy. “At last,” I say to myself. “At last, I’ll be reunited with my mother!”
    Yes, Mom, it’s unbelievable but true. My quest for you, which began such a long time ago, is about to have a happy ending. In exactly one month’s time, I’ll be coming to see you!
    The thought of meeting you after so many years fills me with such indescribable happiness. Yet I feel my happiness is incomplete because you don’t really know me.
    I have recently begun writing a novel to help me introduce myself to you. The story is based on the things I experienced in my search for you. Oh, Mom, if you only knew what I’ve lived through during this endless search. I’ve objected to Others, crossed an ocean and even spoken with a rose!
    I wish I could send you a copy of my novel right away, but it isn’t finished yet. However, I’d still like to share my story with you. To give you the feel of it, I’ve decided to send you a letter once a week, telling you about the different phases of my search.
    I call these phases: “Objection,” “Path” and “Annihilation.” The last phase, “Rebirth,” will start as soon as we are reunited.
    Let me begin my story with the phase of Objection . . .
    I was quite young when I asked myself this question: “Why don’t I have a mother?”
    But no matter how hard I tried, I could never find the answer.
    However, if there was a question, there had to be an answer. Of course, I wasn’t old enough then to reason like this; but at the time, I could still hear the voice of my heart.
    â€œDon’t ask, ‘Why don’t I have a mother?’” my heart said. “Ask the right question, ask, ‘Where is my mother?’ Ask this of Someone Who Knows.”
    Someone Who Knows . . . Someone Who Knows . . . Someone with knowledge . . . My father!
    â€œDad, where is my mother?” I asked.
    After hesitating for a moment, my father said, “Your mother is with God, my child.”
    Surely, that had to be the truth. Because God would live in the best place and my mother, too, would be worthy of the best place.
    And so, “Where is God?” became my next question. My father looked at me as though I’d asked the oddest question in the world. Then, he answered: “I don’t know.”
    Hoping that maybe Others would know where you were, I asked them, “Do you know where my mother is?”
    â€œYour mother doesn’t exist,” they said.
    â€œWhat does that mean?” I asked.
    â€œWell, she died; she’s not here anymore.”
    How was this possible? This thing, your dying, your being “not here.” How could they suggest your absence when I felt your presence so strongly? Once again my heart spoke to me: “You feel your mother’s presence, so she must exist.”
    I went up to Others and said, “My mother is alive!”
    They gave me a different answer: “Your mother is someplace far away.”
    I wasn’t convinced by that, either, because I felt that you were very close.
    They came up with yet a different answer: “You can only see your mother in the next