Doves. Doves symbolize peace, purity, hope, gentleness, the human soul, and so much more. Doves are graceful animals. They circle the skies, making a blank canvas so much more vibrant. Doves fly high, doves make a dreadful world a bit more beautiful.

But it is so unlikely that a dove will land on you.

I’m never going to see my mother again.

Why is it that the world is unfair? There are eight billion people in this world. Why, why world, did you have to take her?

What did she do wrong?

She did not deserve to be taken away so long ago. 

It began a kidnapping case. I remember it crystal clear. My mom was jogging outside on a beautiful Saturday. I don’t know what happened, but I asked my father where my mom had went. Two hours later and with tons of unanswered calls, my father grew worried. Twenty-four hours later of searching by the police, and my mom was reported missing.

The case was never solved.

My father was an immigrant from Malaysia, with six kids. It was almost impossible for him to raise all of us on his own. Yet he did. It clearly wasn’t healthy. Patches of gray clouded his jet-black hair, his hands grew coarse and veiny, and his eyebags never left. 

Half of the reason is that six kids are tiresome, and the other half is because his wife wasn’t there.

She was the only other one for him in this country. They completed each other, like jigsaw puzzles. Except when a piece gets taken away the puzzle can no longer be solved anymore. My father tried to reassure his kids, and tried to be cheerful and fun, but it was obvious with a situation like this that just couldn’t work out.

I was fourteen at the time, a freshman in high school navigating her assignments as any other kid would. Except this little demon kept poking and prodding at the back of my head, whispering things about my mom. Two years later, the demon is smaller, but it never goes away. Every day I’d come home and see my dad there, his nails bitten off and scratched up, his slowly balding patches of hair, or him looking at the latest news of missing reports solved. Almost like I could see his heart on the table, split in two. 

“Papa,” I asked.

“Hm, oh! Hi MengXin! How was school?” he mustered behind a sad smile.

“It was fine,” I shrugged the backpack off my shoulders. “Pa,”

“Hm?”

“Do you think she’s ever coming back? It’s been two years. So why do you search every day?”

“Well, no, uh…” he sighed. “Look, I just kinda miss her. I’ll be able to let go eventually…” He got up and wiped chip crumbs off his pants. He’d been stress eating again. “Don’t worry about me. Go clean up yourself and do your homework, I’ll make dinner.” With this, he led me up the stairs and into my room, then gently closed my door. Baffled, I walked over to my bed and lay down.

When will it stop? When can we all get over it?

The next day, my dad screamed at the crack of dawn. We all bolted up, still possessed by sleep. I rushed out.

“Pa!”

He turned to me, his eyes bulging and mouth agape, gripping his phone so hard his knuckles were white.

“Your-your-your mother…” Then he burst into tears. Uncontrollable sobs racked his body. He moaned again and again, unable to tell us anything.

“Why is Papa crying?” my tiny little brother asked.

“I... I don’t know…” I took him up in my arms and merely gawked. My older brother walked over and coaxed him. He gently rubbed his back. Then he took Papa’s phone. He too gasped and gawked. Tears falling down my brother’s eyes, he showed us all the headline.

Woman, Xu XinFei, found two years after kidnapping scene. 

I snatched the phone from his hand. Furiously scrolling, all the details looked accurate. The time, date, the event itself.

It’s all true…

It’s all true. 

I broke down, my knees grew weak. I sobbed and moaned. Our family rejoiced. Our cries and thanks filled the morning.

We’d find her, we’d find her.

…

But when we got her back, we didn’t find her, not at all.

When we brought her home, she looked haunted. She seemed to be reduced to some animal, cowered, afraid. She clutched her left hand, her ring finger was missing. She flinched at motions to greet her. It was endless blubbering from the drive back home. My dad tried his best to coax her when he got back, but she didn’t even say his name.

“What happened? Look, it’s going to be okay. You’re okay. It’ll be okay,” he said while brushing her hair with his fingers. “You don’t have to worry anymore, your family is here. We’re here. Remember? I’m your husband.”

She merely nodded.

“What happened?”

She started mumbling, then started bawling. Tears streaked her face and she brought both hands and pulled her hair. One of her hands missing that finger.

It broke my heart. I never wanted to see this. I thought it’d be a happy ever after. It broke my heart every day to see my dad like that, now it’s the same thing with my mom.

I don’t know how much more my tired heart can take.

Every day, she gradually improved. She went to therapy too, but she was never the same again. She still didn’t talk a lot, she still flinched. But at least her days weren’t filled with sobs and sorrows.

Sometimes she’d go up to each one of us and stroke our hair.

“Please don’t leave me,” she’d blubber. “Don’t go away.”

We were kids, startled. We didn’t know how to react. My tiny little brother just kissed her head and said, “I won’t leave you.” The rest of us, we allowed her to caress us. Maybe it was her way of recovering.

One night, we all went to bed. I kissed my mom good night and wished her to sleep well. Then I trudged upstairs. Depression was contagious. All the sorrows in the family spread like fire that burned me down. Sometimes it’s really hard to get back up.

I closed my eyes envisioning a happy family. The eight of us circling around at a park. The sky a bright blue, and smiles painted on all our faces.

A scream interrupted me.

How long had I been up?

It was 2:00 am.

What could’ve happened now?

Scared out of my mind and tired of the contagious sorrow, I quietly, instead of rushing, made my way down the stairs and into the living room. Some of my siblings were already there. I turned at what they were staring at.

In the dark room, I could see they were staring at a body.

The corpse of my mother, a knife in her heart. Her limbs sprawled in awkward angles. Blood pooled on our wooden floor. I covered my mouth. Tried to scream but nothing came out.

My dad seemed to have been the one screaming. He cried and cried. Moaned so loud the birds in the trees fled. 

Sorrow demons covered our family now. They fled from my mom and possessed the rest of us.

This moment would forever affect me, it’d never, ever, go away.

I couldn’t sleep.

I didn’t want to.

At the crack of dawn, I wept outside. The tears left marks streaking down my cheeks. My dad was calming down the younger kids, who were screaming, not understanding.

Pa, I don’t understand too…

He said my mom committed suicide. But why? It’s only been a couple of months. We never got to see what horrors she’d been through. We’d have to wait for more and more case studies and court cases to pop up. We could never find the horrific kidnapper that took her away from us.

All I could do is cry in sorrow.

Coo…coo. 

I look up, and in the top corner of our porch is a nest with a beautiful gray dove. It coos again. Six eggs lay in the nest from what I could see.

The bird flew gracefully and landed before me, staring and cocking its head.

What’s this?

I smiled a bit. Only to flinch when the bird started flying around me. But it landed, perched gently on my shoulder. It rubbed its head on my cheeks.

My heart soared.

Maybe the tears were more controllable.

Maybe my mom’s okay now.

Maybe she needed to let go. Now she has full wings. Now she can fly. She can start over, with a new fair world.

Doves. Doves symbolize peace, purity, hope, gentleness, the human soul, and so much more. Doves are graceful animals. They circle the skies, making a blank canvas so much more vibrant. Doves fly high, doves make a dreadful world a bit more beautiful.

But it is so unlikely that a dove will land on you.

But this dove did.

Fly high mom.

Fly high.