Date: Mon, 13 Dec 1999 13:59:17 EST
Subject: REV:  What Was Really Taken  (1/1)
Source: revision

Classification:	V
Rating:		PG 
Spoilers:	Emily 
Summary:	Scully cleans out her closet and finds a forgotten 
		package. 
 
 
The choice was made years ago.  There are no regrets.   
 
 
For my mother and for my niece and nephews. 
 
 
What Was Really Taken 
by Martha 
marthalgm@yahoo.com 
 
 
Scully had checked off another item on her long list of 'Things to 
Do'.  A new year, a new outlook on life.  Getting her apartment in 
order was a top priority.  The spring cleaning never got done 
last year.  Spring?  What happened to last spring? 
 
The weeks and months flew by.  The revelations.  The remission. 
That's what happened. 
 
The hall closet was the last major entry on her list.  She sorted 
through the towels and bed linens and made some notes as to what 
to buy at the end-of-the-month White Sales.  Various packages were 
still on some of the shelves, and she could not remember what some 
of them contained until she had opened them.  Thankfully, none of 
them were Christmas presents that she had forgotten to take on her 
recent trips to her brothers' homes. 
 
One box sat half hidden under an old comforter on the top shelf. 
Scully strained to reach it and was barely able to slip a finger 
underneath the lip of the cover and start dragging it out before 
the comforter and the box came tumbling down to the floor beside 
her.  As she looked down at the box, whose cover had jarred open, 
she spied the cream-colored material and the delicate design of 
its companion peeking out underneath.  A linen blanket.  A 
crocheted shawl.  As Scully crouched to retrieve the package, a 
tiny stream of recollections came to mind.  The store where she 
had bought this.  The wrapping paper.  The sound of a child crying 
itself to sleep.  Her doctor's voice. 
 
And she sat on the floor in her hallway and pulled the blanket and 
the shawl onto her lap and cried not for herself or for her life, 
but for her mother. 
 
	*	*	*	*	*	*	* 
 
I bought this set back in the summer.  For Bill and Tara's baby. 
I saw it and just knew that it would be perfect for him or her. 
 
Who am I kidding?  I bought this for myself.  After my doctor told 
me.  For all my unborns. 
 
I used to take it out and gently lay it across my elbow and 
forearm - pretending that it is cradling a child - my child.  The 
one that I will never have.  I bring the top edge of the blanket 
to my cheek, to stroke its softness, to pretend that it is the 
crown of my child's head.  I kiss it gently and then return it to 
my cheek.  And I walk around this apartment, quietly humming a 
lullaby learned long ago, while carrying the weight of the 
emptiness in my arms. 
 
Holding Matthew brought it all back to me.  This will be as close 
as I will ever get to the simple act of rocking a child to sleep. 
I may borrow, I may pretend, but in the end, I will have to 
relinquish the child to its true mother.  The one who bore it; 
the one who will watch over it.  Who will hope and dream and 
worry.  Who will kiss away the tears and fill her arms with hugs 
and protect until her last breath.  As was done for me by my 
mother. 
 
Oh, Mom.  You are never going to be able to show me.  And 
possibly, this saddens me more than my barrenness.  If Melissa had 
children, and she would have if she were still here, you would 
have shown her.  How to care and feed, how to always know when 
something is wrong, how to give up a bit of the selfishness that 
we all instinctually have and turn it into the love and protection 
needed to nurture the next generation.  How to be a mother.  But 
Melissa is gone.  And I will not have children of my own.  What 
you have carried from your childhood with your mother and brought 
to us during our early years will end with me.  The cycle from 
mother to daughter has been broken.  You realized this when I told 
you that I could not have children.  I am beginning to cope with 
what has been taken from me;  it is just now dawning on me at what 
has been taken from you. 
 
It was not the same with Charlie's children, was it?  As it will 
not be with Bill's.  The new mothers will always turn to their own 
for guidance and advice.  It is no reflection on you;  it is only 
natural for them to seek out their own mothers.  And this, as a 
mother, you know.  You will always be a grandmother.  But they are 
the children of your sons. 
 
Your daughters tried not to disappoint you.  Well, maybe Melissa 
did a little bit.  But the two of you were so much alike.  She'd 
have had those grandchildren that you silently prayed for, and she 
would have hounded you on how to make sense of it all.  And I 
suppose that I would have eventually gotten around to it once all 
the other necessary ingredients for a full and happy life were 
added.  But the tragedies and crushing blows of dime-store novels 
have been visited upon us. 
 
You have your faith to see you through this.  And I have my work. 
But more importantly, I have you. 
 
We will get through this together.  We will be the doting 
relations to the next generation of Scullys.  We will watch the 
new branches from the sidelines as the years progress. 
 
But we will get through this. 
 
For you are my mother, and I still have so much to learn. 
 
 
end