The Raven’s Last Laugh

The raven flew through the sky just like that day. The day where everything changed. My world flipped upside down and inside out.

I was a little girl then. My pigtails had ribbons on them. My mom insisted on it for the big family Christmas party. My dad had driven to Target to get some last minute decorations, and she had started on the Christmas feast. It was early enough in the afternoon that my extended family hadn’t arrived yet. I just sat outside, staring at the sky, waiting for my cousin. That was when it happened.

The smell of smoke filled my nose as the fire burned through the walls of my house, my mom still inside. Screams filled my ears, but I didn’t know what to do. I was just a little five year old kid.

People always talk about the fight or flight response. I’ve heard of another reaction that describes me more: freeze. I couldn’t move my limbs. I just stood there. I wish I did something, anything to help her. I might have moved if I had known what would happen.

A car pulled up into our driveway, my dad was here. He had tears in his eyes as he covered his mouth and went into our burning building. I stood there. As I closed my eyes, I felt a tear roll down my cheek.

It was too late. My dad came out of my house, carrying an unconscious woman, my mom. He collapsed onto the ground, and he dug his face into her chest. He wrapped his arms around hers. It looked like a romance movie. The ambulance and the firefighters arrived shortly after. They put my mom in a stretcher, and they drove away. That was the last time I saw her.

I felt her presence everywhere after that day. Especially, I feel her when I’m in the graveyard. But, this annoying raven alway sat on her grave. It’s extremely disgusting because the raven leaves a “present” every time I visit. Anyways, just being close to her makes me feel like she’s still here. Like we grew up together, and my dad was happy again.

Now that Ravenna has entered our lives, our family has been different. No matter what she says, Ravenna will never be my mother. I can’t believe dad doesn’t think that mom will always be his wife.

My mom always sat in the same spot for dinner. Because taking pictures of the snow all day got her shivering like a dog by the time she got home, she always took the chair next to the fireplace. She installed it too. She always said “a home is a home because it’s cozy, and only a fireplace can make something cozy.” But Ravenna? Not only did she take my mother’s seat, she took the fireplace too. Guess what? When I mentioned it to my dad, he didn’t know what I was talking about.

That was the moment when I realized I was the only one mourning my mom. My dad had already moved on, and Ravenna didn’t care. I cared. I loved and still love her with all my heart. She may be dead in their hearts, but she lives in mine.

Ravenna says I should just move on already, but she doesn’t know what I’m going through. She doesn’t know the loss I feel, and she never will. She doesn’t have enough empathy in her heart to ever love someone as much as I love my mom. She didn’t even have a mom to love, so how could she ever understand the pain I’m going through.

But, when the construction workers came to take the fireplace, that was the last straw. I had to visit my mom, or at least where her body laid.

The raven I had last seen was in the graveyard again. God, I hated that bird. It always seemed to mock me. Mock me for not protecting my mom, for how I let Ravenna take over my life, and mock me for how I cry over things that didn’t have to happen. It’s all my fault. I couldn’t stand it anymore. So, I took a rock, and I knocked it down.

I hit the raven’s wing. Only as it hit the ground, I realized what I had done. This bird wasn’t mocking me, it just happened to be there. And, I yet again, harmed something. First it was my mom, then it was Ravenna, now it was the raven. I may have gone too far with the raven and my mother, but I could still fix things with Ravenna. She had only tried to get close to me, but I kept villainizing her.

I ran back to my house, leaving some more flowers by my mother’s grave before I left. My legs hurt, but I couldn’t stop because I didn’t want Ravenna to leave before I mended things with her.

When I arrived at the house, I couldn’t move. The fireplace was outside, destroyed. It was still there, I saw the hand painted bricks cracked in half. They were just laying there, strewn across the yard, no dignity given to my mother’s prized possession. And, Ravenna, she was overseeing the whole thing. I couldn’t just stand and watch this happen. No, I couldn’t make up with Ravenna and forget this ever happened. She needed to apologize to me.

I charged at her, putting all my body weight into it. She fell onto the ground, and I started punching her. I felt a few of her teeth pierce my skin as she bit me, but I kept going. My eyes blinded with tears, I couldn’t see what I was doing.

Once Ravenna came to her senses, which didn’t take very long, and realized what I was doing, she punched me back. She screamed at me, “what are you doing, you psycho?!?! I’m never coming back here again.” And, there it was, I was once again all alone with my dad. I felt my mom’s spirit crying over my shoulder. I knew this wouldn’t have been what she wanted, but I knew if I didn’t, Ravenna would have erased her. So, we weren’t alone. We still had mom, even if she was disappointed in me, at least she wasn’t gone.