Gillian Imberline, District 8 [Done]

Name: Gillian Imberline 

Age: 12 

Gender: Female 

District: 8 

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Gentle Daughter, 

Remember me as a time of day. Think to the moment when, raising you—with wide eyes and short curls, you saw freedom in the autumn sun. How much now do I wish to have bottled your laughter, so that I could drink up the moments when I’ve needed them most. Your laugh, must you ever know, gives life to us. Your father knows the dimples of your cheeks, the wrinkles on your brow. We have dried your tears and mended your scraped knees. Each time I would hurt with a pain deep in my chest, but resound at how fast you sprang up again, so joyous and full of life. There is a spirit in you that sets the night on fire—you know well, our souls at night are left to dance among the stars. 

Now we sleep with threadbare sheets and patches on our clothes, but there was a time when the world was ours. Your face with rosy cheeks, a cherub’s smile—I remember well the times we bathed you in the old metal tub. Your laugh could crack the frost on the window panes; we learned that laughter bound us together. Remember that we cannot have joy without it. How much I wish I could teach you, but will there ever be enough nights? You should know that the world has more in store for you, that we will never think you are anything but the greatest gift.  

We were told our home would never be more than two. The doctor with heavy eyes and a mustachioed face crept close, and whispered that there was no chance, not a one. And so we learned to live without, that there would never be another for us to mind. Perhaps it would have been better, people say—not us, because—but that there is so much violence and sadness you have yet to learn. We don’t believe them; you have brought more joy and more good to us than could ever be taken away. That’s the secret to knowing there is more to this world. That you can see the pain, the hatred, the violence, and you still shine. Not just mulling along, but you are a beacon, a lighthouse when the world is cold and dark. Never lose that light, and you will never be lost. 

You came to us with grace. 

You have always been an old soul—better suited to the deep thinking at the back of the room than running around with the boys, or whispering with the girls. I could see the light in your eyes when you turned over questions, why is the sky blue, or how many stars are in the sky? You know so little but hunger for much, much more than either of us have to offer. Take care to know we have been coarse with you; that our bellowing voices in anger have yielded to embraces, to all the stillness of love. That, my darling, is love—holding onto you tight, with the safety of never being afraid to fall—our love, for you. 

Your eyes are your father’s, the same blue—a summer sky at morning—curious, impatient. Hair that tumbles down in waves to your shoulders, and curls in the hot heat of the summer. Do you think I don’t know all the little faults that run through you? Nothing is more important than these, the edges that need rounding. You still itch under your skin, thinking that these little imperfections need erasing. When you’re older, you think, all will be smoothed over, like a hot iron against cotton. Wrinkle free. But when you’re old, you will know that those who show no wrinkles have never known wisdom. It is easy enough to speculate, but to truly know you must live. 

So we sit in the gold of the sun, and you listen to the nights that slip away. Do not forget us, your parents, when the world starts to get bigger. How a small a girl of twelve is—in a place so vast, so unending. You tell me that you would like to see what the edge of the world looks like, and how I wish I could give this to you. How unfair, you think, that the world lets you have so little. But we have each other, you, me, and your father. A world that is little, a world that has but a bed for you. The same that cuddles your stuff rabbits, and a table with your little specks of shiny rocks. And you look at the world, you wonder, what justice is there, what awful things we must see—the games, the hunger, the endless days.  

But that is why we’re still here. 

You look at me, freckles scrunched against your face. Your small frame trembles, and you wonder, why? For a world as old as ours, why would we have to live in disharmony? Why would we want to cause so much pain, so much hurt? There has been enough time for the wounds to heal; surely we are all wise enough to know that even the greatest betrayals can be amended. Even children know to say they are sorry. Will it ever be enough; you wonder? 

My mother would say to me of the great war, there is no justice, but there is mercy. For that is all we may give, to make life worth living.