Red and brown

There were dragons all around our house. Red dragons.

There was the red dragon that sat on a shelf. Soft and furry, with a long tail that hung over the side.

There was the red wooden dragon suspended from a beam in the roof. If you pulled the string hanging from underneath the dragons wings flapped.

There was the red stained glass dragon propped up in the corner of the window and when the sun hit just right she sent her flame across the room.

And there was Mum. She was a dragon, too. Not a red one though, not any more. She was grey and brown and faded. All the light gone from her. I thought dragons were big, red, brave heroic beasts that either terrified or protected. Giant wyrms hoarding their treasure. Winged serpents laying waste to their enemies. Mum wasn't like that.

Mum was the hoarding type of dragon. Only she didn't hoard treasures, she hoarded tragedy. She could never escape it so instead she drew it in. Piled up her mound of tragedy beneath her and sat atop it like a queen.

She'd been red once. When she was younger she shone bright and proud and thought the world would open before her. But as each stone of tragedy was thrown at her she flew a little lower, until her wings were tattered shreds. So she gathered up each missile that had brought her down. Some just tiny pebbles, some the size of boulders, even a mountain or two. She drew them close and made them her treasures, hissing like a wild beast at anyone who tried to take them away from her.

She lived among her tragedy-treasures, hollowing out a spot to curl up and sleep, pulling a a blanket of sorrow up to her chin and tucking herself in tight.

The red dragons in our house watched over all of this. They watched as she faded and withered lost her light. They watched as she hatched her own dragons.

The hatchlings grew, thanks to her. They wouldn't grow to be the biggest, or the strongest, or the brightest dragons. But they were bold and independent. Each of them desiring to spread their wings and venture out on their own. Each of them left because they could feel the pull of that towering mound of tragedy-treasure under whose shadow they had grown. The shadow they watched grow bigger, as their mother grew smaller.

The hatchlings resented their mother, because everything she gave them was only ever just enough. They didn't know that what she gave was everything she had.

The hatchlings resented their mother for being faded and tired and wallowing in her tragedy-treasure. They didn't know that they were the reason she wallowed. She wasn't wallowing, she was holding back the avalanche, the landslide of grief that would bury them all if she didn't hold strong.

But once the hatchlings had flown and found their own way in the world, there was no longer any need for her to hold back the tide of tragedy-treasure.

She let go.

The rocks and stones washed over her and she let them.

The red dragons in our house watched, said a prayer for their fallen sister, and flew onwards.

I sift through the rubble of Mum's tragedy-treasure. Most of them I recognise. Some are surprises, some I don't know at all. Many are blank, gone with her. Here and there in the dust I see a glint. A shimmer. Look, it's a fleck of gold, or a tiny glowing gem. Actual, real treasure.

I pick out these minuscule fragments of light and gather them together. I didn't know they were there. I didn't know she'd kept them. To be honest I didn't know she's had any to keep.

And that's where I failed her. One of the many ways I failed her. I never saw past her tragedies to the gold underneath.

Dragons don't need to be red and fearsome. Dragons can be small and brown and grey and devote their lives to raising a brood that will never understand the choices you made, all so that they could fly.

I've noticed lately that my red scales are fading. Their lustre is not as bright anymore. The edges are darkening. Turning to brown and grey.

Mum surrounded us with red dragons to show us what we could be. She wanted to be a red dragon too, but she choose the life she did so that we could have the chance to fly.

Mum, I love you, but I won't be a brown dragon like you.

I'm sorry I didn't understand when you were alive.

Thank you for giving me your everything.

I will keep your treasures with me.

I will stay red, like you wanted.