A Mother's Love

The air was chilly, and her breath swirled out into the dark winter morning. The pavements glistened like bejeweled sheets, mirroring the sky, whilst the dark tarmac road resembled patent leather, which would be hazardous to the road users today.

Maisie’s face was pale and grey, etched with deep creases, like a map directing to distant memories of the past. She was a bag of bones in her oversized garments, but a determined old fool nevertheless. She would continue with her regular walk to the park, regardless of the weather. She would be a long time dead, she reckoned. She shuffled along. Her stick slipped on the icy ground without warning, and now Maisie lay on the ground, her bones shattered. She let out a shriek. The sharp pain belatedly reached her already overloaded nervous system, and, as the blood rushed to her head, she blacked out.

She saw the bright white light as it encompassed her frail body, and felt a wave of contentment pass over as she opened her eyes to a sea of white coats, and one face smiling.

“It is not yet time to leave this world” she thought. A smile pressed itself quietly on her weary lips. She would be eternally grateful for the Lord’s intervention. There was unfinished business here, and she knew exactly what that was. Her son’s furrowed brow relaxed slightly, as he touched her hand.

THE END

My Inspiration

This creative story was inspired by humanity. Life is too short to have any regrets. Having lost my own father, it made me think about how we could have spent more time together, even though we had a very close relationship.

This short piece of creative writing is thought provoking and inspiring. It leaves you wanting to know more. Did the mother and son reconnect? Why did they have a broken relationship? Why had they obviously not been speaking to each other?

One colleague, whilst reading this piece, burst into tears at the end, imagining it was her and her son. It evoked a reaction from this reader and others, so strong that emotion was an inevitability. You want to create a picture in their head. A good piece of writing will conquer this every time.

This story also engages the reader with a religious or spiritual faith. A heavenly intervention created an ideal backdrop for the reconnection. The elderly lady had always been true to her faith, and her prayers are answered when she is awakened from a near death experience, to find her son by her bedside obviously very concerned for his mother.

Creating characters who you can empathize with or even sympathize with will draw the audience into the storyline. A reader may find they can relate to the character in some ways and as the story continues, building the character more and more will help this continued engagement.

If you think about your favorite books, you will remember what it was about the plot, the characters and the backdrop that engaged with you so. Did you relate to the strong archetypical hero? Or was it the vulnerability of a damaged soul that pulled you in? Did you relate to them on some level? When we feel a rapport with someone, usually due to a shared experience, then we can really start to feel we know them well and see a little piece of ourselves in them. This is the unique bonding experience that is universal.

The story has a happy ending, but leaves you on a cliffhanger longing to know more; another way to create a page turner in a book. If you leave each chapter on a knife edge or cliffhanger, the reader wants to continue with the next chapter to find out what happens. A good piece of writing will add these dilemmas and plot twists timing them to perfection, so that the last sentence creates drama or intrigue, indulging the reader's imagination...