Love wears many faces. In life’s quietest moments, we often realize that our deepest regrets aren’t the words we spoke but the love we failed to see. This is the story of a son who abandoned his mother out of shame, only to return years later and find a letter that brought him to his knees in tears.
Once, in a small village, lived a poor mother and her son. Let’s call them Mercy because her heart knew only how to give, and Rock because… you’ll understand soon enough. The morning sun cast long shadows across the dusty path as Mercy walked her son home from school.
She adjusted the black fabric patch covering her left eye socket, painfully aware of the whispers that followed them like autumn leaves in the wind. Her worn dress and patched apron spoke of poverty, but it was her face that drew stares — the covered hollow where her left eye should have been. “Rocky, sweetie, how was school today?” she asked, reaching for his small hand.
The eight-year-old jerked away, his shoulders hunched beneath his secondhand backpack. “Don’t touch me,” he muttered, moving to walk several paces ahead. “Everyone laughs at me because of you.”
A group of children passed by, their whispers carrying on the breeze.
“There’s the witch-boy,” one said, causing the others to snicker. Rock’s face burned with shame. Mercy quickened her pace to catch up with him.
“Sweetheart, please wait,” she pleaded. “We can talk about this. I heard about what happened at recess.
Mrs. Peterson told me —”
“She told you how Tommy called you a one-eyed witch?” Rock spun around, his face red with anger and shame. “How everyone laughed?
How they said I must be cursed to have a mother like you?”
“Tommy doesn’t understand —” Mercy began. “No one understands!” Rock shouted, his small fists clenched. “Do you know what else they say?
They say you probably did something evil to deserve losing your eye. And that’s why Dad left us!”
Mercy’s remaining eye dimmed with hurt, but she kept her voice gentle. “I’m sorry, baby.
I know it’s hard.”
“Why can’t you be normal like other mothers?” Rock’s voice cracked. “Sarah’s mom baked cupcakes for the class today. All the kids loved them.
But me? I just want to disappear when you come to school. I hate you!
I hate you!”
“Rocky, please…” Mercy reached for him again, her voice breaking. “Your father didn’t leave us. He —”
“I wish he had taken me with him!” he screamed, tears streaming down his face.
“At least then I wouldn’t have to be the witch-boy’s son!”
He ran ahead, leaving Mercy alone on the path, her heart breaking with each step her son took away from her. That night, she sat in their small kitchen, counting the eggs her chickens had laid. Each one meant a few more pennies toward Rock’s education.
Her fingers traced the patch over her empty eye socket, remembering a time when sacrifice had seemed so simple and so obvious a choice. “Lord,” she whispered into the quiet kitchen, “give him the strength to endure this. And if he must hate someone, let it be me, not himself.”
Years passed, marked by Rock’s growing silence and Mercy’s quiet perseverance.
Their small vegetable garden yielded enough to keep them fed, and her chickens provided eggs to sell at the market. She saved every extra penny, knowing education was Rock’s ticket to a better life. One spring morning, ten years after that painful walk home, Rock stood in their humble kitchen, an acceptance letter clutched in his fist.
“I got into the university in the city,” he announced flatly. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
Mercy looked up from the vegetables she was chopping for dinner, her knife pausing mid-slice. The morning light streaming through their patched curtains caught the silver strands in her hair… strands that hadn’t been there just yesterday.
“Tomorrow? But that’s so sudden. I haven’t even prepared your favorite dishes, or packed your father’s old —”
“I don’t want any preparation,” Rock cut her off.
“And don’t… don’t try to visit me there.”
Mercy’s hand trembled on the knife handle. “But Rock, my boy, I’ve saved enough from the eggs. I could come once a month, maybe help with your laundry or —”
“No!
I’m starting fresh. No one there needs to know about… about this.” He gestured vaguely at her face. “I can finally be normal.
Don’t you understand? I can be someone else there. Someone without a past.
Someone without a living, walking embarrassment like YOU.”
“You’re already someone,” Mercy whispered. “You’re my son.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want to be anymore.”
Mercy steadied herself against the counter, her heart shattering into a million pieces. “I’ve saved five thousand dollars,” she said, placing a jar of money on the counter.
“Every egg, every vegetable I could spare. It’s all yours for school.”
Rock’s expression flickered for a moment. “Keep it,” he said, but his voice wavered.
“I got a scholarship.”
“Then take it for living expenses. Please, son. Let me do this one thing.”
“I don’t want anything from you!” The words exploded from him.
“Don’t you get it? Every penny, every sacrifice just reminds me of what I’m trying to escape!”
“The day you were born,” Mercy said, her voice gaining strength, “you looked up at me with such trust. Such love.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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