Painfully Perfect

"It's beautiful here... now I know why you spent so much time out here alone." She said as she stood on the bank of the serene, winding river and looked down at the valley below.

"Yeah. It's peaceful. When the moon is full, it shines down on the river, the wolves howl in the distance... you can hear even the most subtle sound of nature here. No TV's, no radios, no traffic. I can watch over everything from here..." He responded from behind her as she continued to gaze out into the distance.

"It's... perfect..." She answered with a soft hesitation appearing in her voice, not matching the words leaving her mouth.

"Then why don't you sound sure of that?" He asked as the tone in her voice betrayed her attempt to conceal her apprehension.

She did not answer, instead she turned away from the valley as she closed her eyes tightly, her hands gripping onto the chakra medallion she wore around her neck. She tried counting to ten silently in her head while begging her eyes not to reveal her emotions. It didn't matter how much she desired to rationalize this moment... this place, as being perfection - it wasn't. She knew this wasn't what she wanted, and the fact that she had no choice did not make accepting the situation any easier.

"You can't control everything you know? And this is one of those things that you have no power or influence over, Honey." He whispered from behind her as she felt the sting of truth hit into her heart with his words.

Her eyes betrayed her the moment those words from him echoed into her ears. She turned back towards the peaceful edge of the river as her eyes mimicked the flowing rapids. She wanted to scream and curse at the Universe in that moment as she looked down upon the beauty of the valley beneath the mountains. It was amazing and peaceful, but all she felt was anger and rage at this moment. She tried in vain to regain her composure, but her soul would not yield this time.

"Honey..." He whispered as she almost felt a familiar warmth on her shoulder from his comforting hand.

"I'm fine... it's fine... this place is... yeah... this will be a good place for you..." She struggled through the words while pulling away before the warmth graced her shoulder as she stepped closer to the rivers edge.

She tried to convince herself that she was fine, repeating the words in her head over and over again, but her attempts were futile. She knew she wasn't okay.

This wasn't okay.

She did not want to accept this and the fact that she had no choice enraged her. She felt the emotions of a trapped inferno within her heart screaming to be released as she desperately tried to keep in control. She kept staring out into the valley. It looked so tranquil, so untroubled - yet she felt more burden and pain weighing on her in that moment than ever in her life.

"You can't control this... you can't change this... I'm sorry, Honey..." His words whispered from behind her again stabbing into her heart like a million daggers as she began to break.

Her howling cries of sorrow replaced the blissful sounds of nature, her pain echoed from the mountain top as her pain watered the ground and flowed into the river as she fell to her knees in front of it. She reached for a silver metal jar sitting at the edge of the river and pulled it into her chest, embracing it while her wails of sorrow continued to echo across the mountain.

"I don't want this... this isn't perfect... this isn't right... I don't know how to let you go..." She cried as she clung onto the icy metal that could not embrace her with the familiar warmth she longed to feel again.

"It doesn't change the reality, Honey... it isn't a choice you can control... Life and death coexist. You can't have one without the other. I'll always be with you... from here, I can watch out over everything... from here, I can embrace everything..." His words whispered from behind her again as she clutched the frigid jar tightly, her hand moving towards the lid reluctantly.

"I'll always be with you, Honey... always... that's what all the memories we made are for. Don't think of this as saying goodbye or letting me go... because you'll always have me with you... always..." His whisper continued as it trailed off into a faint echo as she opened the jar and allowed the wind to carry the ashes from it out along it's wings.

"I love you, Daddy... I'll never stop missing you..." She whispered as she watched him flow out across the valley, her face covered in grief and stained with sorrow as she looked out into a view that seemed so... perfect.

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