May Angels Lead You In
It took his Dad a whole year and a bit before he worked up the courage and strength to delete the answering machine message, the one that proclaimed in his mother's cheery voice, "Hello! I'm so sorry that none of us were around to take your call, but please do leave a message, and one of us will be sure to get back to you! Have a fantastic day!" and record a new one. He even went to the trouble of recording the message on their old tape recorder before he deleted it, just so he could replay his wife's voice over and over and over again.
During that year, Kurt had learnt how life was without a mother. He was only nine, but everything around the home had suddenly fallen to him upon his mother's death. He had to wake himself, and his Dad up in the mornings, had to cook them breakfast, had to prepare lunch, had to catch the bus without any form of a goodbye, had to catch it home again, had to clean up the mess from this morning, had to wash their clothes, had to make their beds, had to prepare dinner, had to serve it, and then had to clean up again. It was horrible, taking on all these duties that his mother had previously done with a smile on her face and a giggle in her throat, duties that seemed so heavy on his small shoulders.
He missed his Mom, plain and simple. There was no one around to tickle his toes at night, no one to sing to him when he couldn't sleep, no one to ruffle his hair and say "It'll be okay, I promise" when he got teased at school. His father had withdrawn into a cycle of sleeping, eating and working, with no time spared for a even a single thought about the welfare of his only child. Kurt had never felt so alone.
Sure, they had tried for more children at Kurt's nagging protests, and it was during those tests to see whether or not Mindy could even have any more children that they discovered the lump, small, practically tiny but still frightening on her right breast. She had shaken it off as nothing, and entered chemo therapy as soon as she could. Her long blonde hair had fallen out, but she had still smiled. Everyone had thought that the chemotherapy would magically fix things, and that she would get better, and never ever leave them. But it hadn't.
He often taped the episodes of her favourite shows, shows like Friends and Full House and sat up in his bedroom with her late at night when his Dad was fast asleep, snoring away, watching them. Nothing had even felt so peaceful, even without the curtain of gold falling around her like a halo. He used to jokinly rub her bald head and say that he felt luckier, an action to which his mom replied to by tickling him mercilessly.
"Angie the angel," his Dad had used to say, to which she had laughed and replied, "Well you're my Burt and Kurt, my two little soliders who battle on so bravely that God must have decided to send me into your lives."
He missed his Mom.
It was only when he snuggled up in bed at night-time and wrapped his arms around her favourite sweater that he ever felt relief from the nagging hole in his heart. Kurt supposed God had decided that Burt and Kurt had had Angie the angel for long enough and had decided to call her back home. And that was alright with him, also long as she was happy.
Everyone needed a little bit of happiness in their lives anyway, and his Mom was the only person that could provide that.
Revvvvvvvvvvview? :)