I don't know if I'm allowed to write in the "family" diary. After all, I'm one of the dispensable ones. Just a mortal who will soon vanish from this wonderful family. My name is Aurora (Shallow) Thyme and I'm married to the most wonderful man on earth, Justin Thyme, first heir to a family that hopes to be immortal. We'll just see how that works for them!
My mother-in-law, Winter Thyme is one of the most amazing women I know. She started out with nothing, and through mostly her hard work and determination, and the willing help and love of two husbands, her son, and myself, has built a family of wealth, prestige and great accomplishments. Her dream has been built on her personal tragedy and loss, and so far she has succeeded. My darling Justin has joined her as an immortal so I know that, even though I may die, he at least will live forever and therefor so will I, if only in his memories. Our daughter, Summer, is the heir to this family and will one day, if all goes as planned, will join her grandmother and father as another immortal. This is my dearest wish and the reason I can willingly sacrifice my own desires, because if I choose to beg for my own, personal, immortality, the entire family will fail. I can prepare the sacred food that will keep them forever alive, although elderly, but I must not ever taste it or the fruit that goes into it. It is not even a temptation any longer, although there are days........
We have a gorgeous mansion to live in, a huge farm, cars you usually can only dream of, and a very tight knit and loving family. Of course, money just pours in from the properties they either own or are partners in, and the money trees seem to produce faster than we can harvest them. Now my daughter, Summer, has married a delightful young man, Jude is his name, and hopefully will produce a grandchild for me to love in the time I have left on earth. As it happened, this almost was never going to be a possibility.
Summer is sometimes a bit rash, and in her rush to marry Jude, she did not tell him anything about the family "curse" of immortality. Yes, CURSE. How could it be a blessing when you are forever selfishly guarding the secret that would keep the ones you love the most with you forever? Anyway, I digress.
Summer had a rather rapid wedding. We managed to catch just a glimpse of it, and of her looking radiant and beautiful. She did ask us to come but somehow we wound up being late and only managed the last few seconds and of course, the family jam session afterwards. I know she had a lovely wedding night because both she and Jude were all aglow the next morning, giggling and constantly touching one another. It's almost as if they were in their own private bubble and the world around them wasn't really quite there.
I was coming out of the kitchen to eat with the others by the pool when I heard voices that were upset and tense. This is what happened.
"So Jude! Welcome to the family. I suppose Summer has told you all about what your role in our family will be and about the family gift?"
"Gift, sir? I'm not sure what you mean. Summer is gift enough for me. I love her very much you know, and I promise you, I will take care of her and cherish her always."
"You have accepted the fact that you will age and die and she and your child will remail alive forever, right? I mean, she did tell you? You do know certain members of our family are immortal and you, and my darling Aurora, are not? "
"WHAT!? What do you mean you are "immortal" and Aurora and I aren't? Oh, I get it! You're teasing me! Good one, sir! You really had me going there for a moment!"
"Well, I really botched this one. I'm sorry, Jude. I thought Summer had told you all about it and that you were willing. I really am sorry man."
Just then Winter came out and saw what Justin had done.
"Good morning, Justin, Jude. Well, Justin, I see you have started to tell this wonderful young man all about us! Jude, it is not as bad as my dear son is saying. I'm sorry Summer did not talk to you about this beforehand but please understand it was more because she is very much in love with you. I'm going to be honest with you here, son. We were not totally pleased with her choice of you. You had some unresolved issues that we felt might not be in the best interests of our darling girl or the family. However, you have matured a lot and I can see you both adore each other. In the long run, isn't that what matters?"
"Really? It might have been nice if she had been honest and had clued me in from the beginning. If she had talked with me first it would have been different. Now I'm not so sure. How can we have a good marriage if we aren't totally honest with each other?"
"Jude, I really believe it was an oversight on her part."
"OVERSIGHT? Pretty darned big "oversight" if you ask me!"
"Ok, let's calm down and have a talk about this, shall we? First of all there was very little time when she could have talked with you about it. In the beginning you were always going off somewhere every time she tried to call or that awful time when you came over and then left immediately. I'm telling you Jude, that episode was just about the end of it for you two ever being together. Then we hauled her off on a couple of trips. I'm being honest here, we had hoped she would find someone else on one of those trips. However, all she could do is moon around and talk about you. How many times did she call you while on vacation? It seems to me she was always chatting with you."
"Yeah. I was kind of a jerk that day. I knew I had to go to work in a few minutes so I just should have made plans to see her later that evening or on my day off. I thought she'd understand I just had to see her, if only for a few minutes. I could see her in the rear view mirror and really did look upset. I'm really sorry about that one. And then she was gone, and the only thing I had left was her phone calls! So, you're right. It did seem like she really cared about me and I guess a phone conversation would not have been the best way to talk about this. So tell me about it, ok?"
"I won't go into the whole long history of this. Summer can fill you in on any details or whatever. Basically, after a lot of research and a huge amount of plain, dumb luck, I came across the secret of immortality. I'm not sure if it's a blessing or a curse because the members of our family are fated to fall desperately in love with someone, or many someones, marry them, have one child who will be our heir, and then watch our beloved spouses die while we age, but remain immortal. The heir will live forever, and that my dear, new son, is your only consolation. If you truly love Summer with all your being, you will find the strength and the great courage to support her in every way you can knowing she and your child will live forever. That is the part that is your blessing. You will live on in their memories and will pass from this earth knowing the ones you love the most will always be here. During your time in the family you will have every thing you could ever want. You will have wealth, time to fulfill every life time wish you have ever had, you will be dearly loved and cherished by us all. You will be able to watch your child grow and blossom and you will be so well loved by Summer it will be beyond your fondest imaginings. Our blessing will be your presence among us, but our blessing is bittersweet. As we come to know you and love you, we will always have the knowledge that you will leave us and we'll be left behind for eternity. At first I thought immortality was the greatest gift and the greatest blessing. After having to let go of two husbands, I'm no longer so sure it is a blessing and not a curse. I miss them every day I live. Of course, you will also have your duties among us just as everyone in any family does. You'll have your chores to do, as we all do, and you'll have to promote the well being of your small nuclear family as well as the larger family. Worse, you can NEVER, ever tell anyone about this! Not your dearest friend or any family outside of our family. Never, Jude. If you do you curse Summer and your child, if you have one to death. You also may NEVER eat anything we forbid you to eat. It is one dish and one fruit, so you certainly won't starve, but you can never eat it."
"This is an awful lot to take in, and I'm pretty mad right now. I really don't know what to see or what to think. Thanks for telling me all this. I have a lot of thinking to do."
It was right at that moment I came up to them. Oh boy! What a mess! I love my Justin dearly but he certainly is not the soul of tact!
"Aurora I think we blew it. That poor kid!"
"Don't worry, Mom. I'll have a chat with him and let him know what it's like from my perspective. You know what it is for you, but you two will remain, while Jude and I......."
"I'm so sorry Aurora. I really, truly, wish it could be different. Thank you so much for all you have done and all you are, and thanks for talking with Jude. I think that will ease his mind a lot and hopefully prevent a divorce. He's really angry right now."
Later on, after I finally sat down and had my meal, I had a talk with Jude. He was in the kitchen and had been talking with Summer, although not about all he'd heard. He was still too upset to bring it up. I jumped right in. Summer wasn't sure what to say. She just let me do the talking.
"Jude, dear, I hear you heard all about the family today. I'm so sorry you had to learn about them the way you did. I want you to know, if you have any questions about this you can come to me and I'll do my best. Let me say though, my dear, silly daughter probably just made some assumptions and never thought it would be a big deal. I don't think she realizes how unique this family is. Do you sweetie? No? I thought not. You know, you silly girl, you have a lot of explaining to do to this young man. For now, Jude, just let me say it's ok. At first I really didn't believe it was true. I was so madly in love with Justin, I still am, that it was hard for me to accept that he could do this. To love me and then willingly let me die while he remained behind? Then I thought of how much I loved him and it was ok. When I realized our child would also be with him, my fears and doubts left. After all, I would die anyway some day whether he and our child were immortal or not. This way I would be spared the pain of losing him. I would go to a peaceful place but he would have to remain behind, alone and lonely without me. That actually has been harder for me to bear. Search your heart, Jude. Do you love her enough to accept this burden?"
"I do, momma Aurora. I most certainly do."
And that was that. I wasn't sure I had done the right thing, but can we ever be completely sure about things like this? I was just happy these two young people would have a good start with a totally open relationship now.
"Summer, I love you so much. Just please, honey. Never keep anything from me again, ok? And I won't ever keep anything from you. No secrets, except the good, surprise kind. Ok?"
"Thank you dearest. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you before. It wasn't deliberate. I just love you so much and wanted to be with you so very much. No secrets, I promise."
"You've made me so happy marrying me. I still can't believe it sometimes!"
So that was it. The happy couple went off to work things out while I hoped there would be chimes ringing, (heheh), and the rest of us planned a great vacation trip and time to get to know one another for us all. Jude had wanted to go to Shang Simla for years and this was going to be a gift with and from us all. More about that later!
