I have the deepest of loves for characters that are seen as antagonists, because you always read the books from the 'heroes' point of view- it's one of those 'history is written by those who have won the wars.'
I still haven't read the last book of the series, so I have no idea what happens to her, but tbh someone who ends up going to such extremes and standing by her actions and leading and just being a 'ruthless bitch' --give me.
((I've never done one of these before, and I really really really need to because you guys are amazing. Seriously, I have no idea how to order this list. I'm just gonna alphabetize it.))
[ so yes this is Libi creeping on her favorite couple, and considering that they should have several kids so one can be named after her. Libitina is such a nice name. ]
Send me "I miss you" to know what my muse will say after 1 year, 5 years, then to 10 years after your muse's death.
( one year )
Nobody tells you how to deal with the death of your family. They don’t tell you how to deal with them when they are expected, even less when they come too soon and (for some, for her) too unfairly. It would be easier if someone forced you to stick to the stages of grief, if the book text manual about how to properly hurt could be slapped about your brain because then the numbness might give pace to something, anything, except the crushing weight in her chest and the very coincident idea that it would never morph into anything that could feel a little less damaging.
They keep on telling you time heals all wounds, but they never realize there is no way on earth, heaven or hell that could make a mother stop hurting.
( I dare you to come now and tell her she was not his mother, or his ‘tante’, or at least some sort of family --age defines as little as when you get to become an actual person to the government; and as much as she always respected the place Dean’s real mother held, familiarity is something that runs deeper than simply bonds of blood. And motherhood is beyond birthing a child, it’s about love. )
After one year, she has visited his grave twelve times, once each month, always on the same date –one that has no meaning and no reason, just a number on the calendar that struck her because of the lack of emotional meaning. She doesn’t cry and she barley talks: not for lack of things to say, but because her throat sizes and her body locks and she hates graveyards and there is really nothing she can say.
So instead she comes, reads him a chapter of a book, and with the promise of coming back (what, Libi wouldn’t dare leave him without telling him the ending) she leaves.
( five years )
No, time hasn’t really helped for much. If anything, she feels more alone. It isn’t the lack of people around her, is the lack of Dean. With that humor she was never completely able to figure out and the fierce loyalty for family that went beyond anything she’d ever seen before.
It’s been five years and they’re finishing the second book, she likes them with long chapters and even more pages. What’s the point in bringing something small, in rushing yet another ending?
When they finished the first book she finally cried like a baby, and raised a prayer not to those Saints and that God she had stopped believing off but to Dean’s mother, she prayed for him to be next to her because the thought of him suffering was too much. Hadn’t he already went through enough when alive (no, Libi had never investigated deeper than what he told her, but she’d seen the bruises and the deep wounds more often than not), it was time he got some peace.
She now also adds some updates on how life is going. For his sake, Libitina has tried to be as updated on the life of Dean’s husband and daughter as much as she can, update him on them while she visits. Is not that she doubts they have their own way of remembering Dean, is that Libi has rarely seen Dean’s husband since his death because she couldn’t deal with the grief on Harry’s eyes. Comfort was not her strongest point, so she retreated to the backgrounds and appeared on the form of uncalled, irregular visits and awkward silence.
It’s been five years, two books, and the boiling anger at the cold stone that holds nothing but dust.
( ten years )
Visits have come to be sparer, no longer twelve a year. More than lack of intention is the tiredness that sweeps through her bones because too many people die and she’s gotten tired of staring at empty graves that won’t answer back.
She still takes a day every month, to lit a candle and read a chapter –what’s the point on visiting the graveyards anymore? If someone was dead they would either not hear you at all or hear you wherever you are. Pain doesn’t go away but live goes on and her own way of honoring his memory is going on without beating herself over something that couldn’t really be stopped. Death doesn’t ask it simply takes (shouldn’t she know this better than most people? Is not like she had ever asked before she poured the poison and caused someone else grief), and there is no point in crying over things that couldn’t be fixed.
Is not that she’ll ever stop missing him, is that he must be tired by now of people crying over him finally finding some sort of lasting peace.
It’s been ten years, four and a half books and, finally, acceptance.
