Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ The Mother Who Couldn't Be ❯ The Mother Who Couldn't Be ( Prologue )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: crescentmoon 
The Story of Aang's Mother. Please review.
Non Anime: Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Drama | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 05.11.2009 | Updated On: 05.31.2009 | Pages: 2 | Words: 4.3K | Visits: 385 | Status: Work In Progress
The Story of Aang's Mother. Please review.
Non Anime: Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Angst / Drama | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 05.11.2009 | Updated On: 05.31.2009 | Pages: 2 | Words: 4.3K | Visits: 385 | Status: Work In Progress
Disclaimer: I don’t own Avatar: The Last Air-bender, the very talented team of Mike and Brain own the show and characters. Umaio, her parents, Fiyo, Fana, Hitsi and Elnan are my characters please respect that. If you wish to use them please talk to me about it and give me credit for them. The rating maybe wrong but I did try to get it right.
By: year of the snake (at fanfiction) aka. crescentmoon (at mediaminer). And now Opal-Dreams on DeviantArt.
The Mother Who Couldn’t Be
Hello, I am Umaio and I have a story to tell…
Once when I was very young things were very different. I was fourteen at the time… I met a man, he was free like the air… he captivated me…
I wish I had made different choices but I was young, too young, but I thought that I was old enough. And he didn’t tell me any different. He never even tried to turn me away. He was young too just older than myself. He was sixteen. His name was Fiyo. He was the air… he was freedom… he was an air-bender.
I never could air-bend even though both my parents could. My parents were very upset when they found out about Fiyo and me. We lived close to the Western Air-Temple and Fiyo, he live with a group more nomadic than ourselves. They were visiting the temple when I met Fiyo. He had been flying and hit a bird on mistake. He landed with the bird in his arms right by the stream where I was sitting.
He was beautiful and wild like the bird in his arms. The bird was terrified. And it wouldn’t hold still to be treated. I offered the teen my help. Together we got the bird’s wing wrapped and let it hop away when we got distracted in each other’s eyes. His eyes were grey and he had hair nearly covering his air-bender tattoo. His hair was brown like a platypus-bear’s fur. His grey eyes held my own green-grey eyes for only a moment but it felt so much longer. It was like his eyes bored into my soul. At that second I didn’t understand that because of this boy my life would forever be different.
I understand now that if we had just been on separate paths more than we were none of the following things would happen. But I didn’t choose to be on a separate path I wanted to be near him. He treated me special, like I wasn’t just a girl, like I was a precious friend. No other boy who visited here had ever done that, certainly no air-bender treated me as highly as he did.
We would walk together and talk. We’d laugh. He took me on his glider once. It was exhilarating. It was amazing to be up so high. To feel the wind in a way you never could on land. To be free of gravity. If only for a moment.
There was a festival while his group was sticking around. It was there that we realized what a connection we had formed. He danced with me all that evening. It was the closest thing to flying I could do without an air-bender’s help. And with an air-bender as my dance partner there might as well have been no ground at all.
It was that night when I should have been abed that I met him, that we went past the bonds of friendship too fast… it was that night that I thought would bond us forever…
Soon I found out I was pregnant and two days after I did my parents found out. I still hadn’t told Fiyo and his group was leaving at the end of the week. What happened was pure disaster.
My parents were furious enough that I was un-wed and pregnant but adding to that that the man was part of an ultimate nomadic group of air-bender made their anger worse. But they would make the man do right by me. I would be an honest woman even if it killed me.
The wedding day was set for two days away. Fiyo was unhappy with the marriage and I was being shunned by the people all around me. Fiyo blamed me for my pregnancy and claimed the baby couldn’t be his. That he wasn’t old enough to be a father. While that was true that he wasn’t old enough to be a proper father, the way he meant it was untrue; he was the father of my baby.
The night before my wedding I was being held in my room against my will. I wanted to talk to Fiyo one more time before we were wed; try to make him not hate me… but my parents wouldn’t allow it.
The next day rose, Fiyo was gone.
I was left alone with the shame of being both an un-wed mother and being jilted. My parents kicked me out and I left the area. I hoped maybe I could find Fiyo or at least someone who would take me in when the time came.
I traveled east towards the Eastern Air-Temple. I walked most of the way; I hitched rides when I could. Hitching rides became easier the larger I got. I found that claiming I was going to visit my husband’s mother for the birth and had a long way to travel was better than telling the truth. No one really wants to help someone who did something so shameful. And so I claimed that I was married and my husband was away on business thus making my trip to my mother-in-law’s imperative. The people I met were much kinder to a married although young mother than an unmarried one.
I made it to the temple just half a week before my baby was born. The nuns there helped me birth my baby. It was a little boy. He was born with thick brown hair and very dark eyes. The nuns explained to me that a baby’s eyes will change in the first few months, the final color would be chosen usually within six months. He was gorgeous and perfect. He was sweet and he was mine.
The nuns knew I was a single woman but they didn’t care. “Everyone has a past…” they’d say. I found that the Mother Superior had been wed twice each man treated her worst than the last. Finally to escape her abusive husband she fled to the monastery for safety and hadn’t left. Another girl maybe four years older than me had been a thief. She was caught and was brought to the closest temple so a wise air-nomad could judge her and tell the man what to do. It was there she found her way to being a nun.
I loved my baby very much. I wanted to keep him forever even with the screaming that woke me up at night and the constant diaper changes. He was mine and I loved him dearly.
The nuns talked to me about giving my baby up to be raised elsewhere by someone else. I refused outright. They asked me to just listen to the benefits and disadvantages first. They had been so kind to me that I agreed to listen with the intent to keep my baby anyway no matter what they said.
They talked of how these people he would be going to would be kind to him; they would nurture him and love him as I did. But they would let him make mistakes so he could learn from them. That these people had much experience raising little boys to be great men. They also said that I would rarely if ever see my baby again that he would not know a mother’s love. That he would be one of many boys. But that he would have a mentor, he would have the father that he wouldn’t have with me.
They continued to say that if I kept the baby past the age of two I would have to leave as boys weren’t allowed to live in the monastery past the age of two. That I would have to earn my own way and support a growing child. That with him I would still be away from him a lot because I would have to work all the time. That things would only get harder for me and my baby. I knew some of how the world worked. I realized that I and my baby would likely starve. That we probably would not have a home. But I was selfish. I didn’t want to be separated even if it meant harm to the person I loved most. Even if it meant my baby would suffer.
It was nearing the time my baby would turn two and I was getting ready to take my baby and leave. No one would separate us I would make sure of that. He was all I had. He was more important to me than any of the friends I had at the temple more important than his father had been or my parents. Or my wellbeing, or his. Now I know that the only thing that had been more important to me was myself. I didn’t want to deal with the pain that would accompany separating. I was being a selfish little sixteen year old, which would have been just fine if another life didn’t depend on mine. I was so terribly attached to my son. Asking me to part with him was like asking me to part with my heart.
A month before I would have to leave three monks from the Southern Air-Temple showed up. The monks were there for two other babies, they were twin boys whose mother had died in child birth. I watched the way the youngest monk, he could have been my dad, treated the babies and the monk-in-training they had brought with them. The monk-in-training was twelve. The man was so kind to them and so good with the kids. He was even kind with the little girls that ran around this temple. Would I be able to give my baby who was showing signs of being an air-bender that? Would I be able to teach him how to bend air? Would I be too tired to care properly for my baby? It was then that I realized what I was fighting so hard to prevent was just what my baby deserved, the best I could give him. I wouldn’t be able to give him a steady home; I likely would be unable to provide him consistent meals. I wouldn’t be able to provide him with a male role model. But they could. The only thing they couldn’t give him was me; they couldn’t give him a mother and a father…
I thought a lot about that, I thought about it all. The only thing I wish they could provide for my boy was the one of the things I couldn’t provide either, a whole family, a mother, father and children. I cried when I made my decision. Gathering the giving nature I didn’t have I talked to the man, Gyatso. I gave him my baby and asked him to raise him and give him all the love I would be too far away to give. He agreed, he would do as I wished.
I cried that night. I cried again watching them leave. I kissed my baby for the last time. And I gave a note to Gyatso to give to my baby when he was older. I wanted him to know I loved him more then I could possibly love myself.
I spent the following month crying. Sometimes I begged the nuns to restrain me so I wouldn’t go after my baby and take him away from what would be a better life. I was in agony without my baby. But I had to let him go, I had too! I wanted better for him then what I could give him! I had to do it for him! Oh I’m getting this scroll all tearstained. Please forgive my tears.
After the first month I stopped needing to be restrained from going after my son but my love for him still filled my bosom. Every second of every day I thought of my son. I wondered what he was doing, how big he was getting, what he was or would soon be learning. I couldn’t get him off my mind. At night I prayed for him. He was still my son even if I would likely never see him again. And that very thought cut deeper than any knife could, stung more then any pain. But I knew he would be provided for and well looked after.
In penitence for the sin that conceived my baby I became a nun. I didn’t regret having my baby, he was a blessing and I just knew that one day the world would think of him as such. I only regretted that he was conceived and born out of wedlock. I would give anything to do that over to give my baby the home and family all babies deserve. I would work for the wellbeing of those I came in contact with and hope that in return the monks treated my baby well.
After a year I got a letter from the Southern Air-Temple, the temple where my boy was staying. The letter proclaimed that my son was the next avatar. That in his hands the balance of the world rested. In my little three year old’s hands. I couldn’t believe it. My son was the avatar. I couldn’t stop the tears. At that point I became even more grateful that my boy was with the monks who could help and teach him all the things he would need to know before he would have to travel the world to find teachers in the other elements. I hadn’t felt so humbled since the day his perfect little form was put in my hands. My baby was the avatar…
That night I cried and cried and prayed harder than I had in a long time. ‘Please let my baby be safe! Please help him on his journey. He isn’t just my greatest treasure anymore he is the world’s greatest treasure. Please, please spirits of heaven and earth, water and fire, protect and guide my baby, my boy.’
That was the last I heard of him for three years. The next I heard of him was when a group of young six year old boys from his temple came to visit with some of the monks to pick out a baby Flying-Bison. When I heard they were coming I went and begged Mother Superior to let me take her place. I begged her to let me be the one to introduce the boys to the Bison.
She allowed me to. I was so thankful, but I had to dress up like her.
I watched the children wondering with one was mine, until he came up, his grey eyes were just like my baby’s, and like Fiyo’s. I watched him intently. He was so big! So beautiful! I had to fight the tears. My baby was right in front of me. I was jealous of a Flying-Bison! That Bison got to do what I wanted to, he got to kiss and hold my baby. Though it hurt I refused to turn away from the painful scene. I wouldn’t miss any of the precious moments that were so few.
Later that day while the children were getting ready for their supper Gyatso found me. He said to me, “I’ve never known Sister Iio to be so generous when it comes to Sky-Bison companion day. It’s her favorite part of being the Mother Superior. You must really touch her heart.”
I just smiled and Gyatso told me some of the things Aang, as he had been named, had been doing in the past four years. He told me some of the techniques that he excelled at and how he was learning how to use a glider in two months when the bison would be big enough to catch him if he fell. Gyatso was certain that Aang would master that in a heartbeat. I could tell that my Aang was as close to Gyatso’s heart as if he was his own son. I knew I made the right choice this time with the man that would be his ‘father’.
I refused to cry the short week Aang and his young friends were at the Eastern Air-Temple. This was a happy time. Even if I never had any more contact with him while he was there I got to see him and that was enough. I could hurt when he was gone, but while he’s here I will be glad.
That was the last time I saw my son, my Aang.
But that wasn’t the last time I thought of him. There were times that the anguish of not having him was more painful then I could bear. There were a lot of times I wished to hold him near. But I knew I had done what was best for him and that Gyatso would take care of him. I still thought of him whenever my mind was not occupied, and prayed for him unceasingly. But I was learning to be content with knowing he was alive and okay.
No one can imagine the pain of what came next. No one has the capacity to hold the pain that was brought out by a simple and short letter. My son was gone. He had run away because the monks were going to go against my wishes and send him to another teacher! He left just before a massive storm hit and they couldn’t find him. Gyatso had sent the letter, he was devastated. He said he never had the chance to tell Aang of me, but he thought that perhaps he had found out anyway and maybe he came here to find me.
I wrote back that he hadn’t shown up. That I’d stay here for a week or two in case he did then I would be out there looking for him unless I got I note saying he was back. I sent the note knowing full well that he wasn’t coming here. I could feel it he was lost to the world. He was not dead just gone. Just completely and totally unreachable.
The pain that retched in my heart, the heart of a mother who would never see her child again is such a hard burden to bear. Unless you have suffered that pain you know nothing of what I felt. Unless you have felt that agony you have only scratched the surface of what pain can be.
I hope the tears smudging this page don’t block my words from coming through.
After a week was up I left. I went straight to the Southern Air-Temple. I didn’t stay there very long. I moved on the Flying-Bison I borrowed from the Eastern Air-Temple towards the South-Pole. My heart tugged me in that direction. It knew where Aang was even if I didn’t.
There was a tribe of water-benders in the frozen lands of the South-Pole. It is there that I found Gyatso. He was trying to enlist the water-benders to help find Aang. He didn’t tell them that Aang was the avatar; just the fact that he was a young boy was heart wrenching enough for some of the water-benders to volunteer. But even with all us looking we couldn’t find him.
The ship I was on was captained by a hard man with a good heart. He was constantly trying to make sure the worried mother on deck was okay. I kept telling him the direction my heart was telling me my son was. But after going over and over that spot he said there was no way that the boy was there unless the fish were nibbling at his flesh.
After searching for three days Gyatso knew we wouldn’t find him. He would remain unfound until he was ready to be found. Gyatso took me back to the Southern Air-Temple where I had to be nursed back to health. I was out on the deck at all hours and had gotten very sick in those three days.
It was nearly mid-summer when I was well again. I immediately took off to look elsewhere for my boy.
Just a month after I left I heard that the Fire Nation had attached the Air-Temples, every single one of them was left with no survivors. And I prayed then that my son didn’t come back in this time of war and sudden fear. The Fire Nation had left us with nothing. And I didn’t want my sweet son to see this. I didn’t want him to have to deal with this war. I began praying the Aang would never be found, that the war would never be his burden to end.
Time is getting short for me. I know it. There were records in the Temples of all the Air-Nomad people. And they have been after the Sister that wasn’t in the Eastern Air-Temple. I know they think my son is with me, but he is not. I am here in this cave alone. There is nothing in here but me and this paper.
Soon I will go back to the Eastern Air-Temple and I will hide this note in the Sky-Bison barracks. I put it there in the hopes that it will not get burned. So that one day people will read this and remember the love of mothers’ is more then anything they will experience on earth.
Now I add one final wish……
I hope someday this scroll falls into your hands my sweet little Aang. I hope it will so you will know the love of the mother who couldn’t be.
Aang please forgive me for not giving you a life in a home with two parents and more love then you could possibly hold in a lifetime. But that wasn’t in my power to give you. I am so sorry.
I love you Aang and my last breath will be the proof of it,
Your Mother,
Umaio
105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105105 105105105105105105105105
Hi everyone! What a sad letter huh? I wrote this for Mother’s Day. And I dedicate it to all the ‘mothers who couldn’t be’. I hope that the message of the love of mothers, even those mothers who gave up their children is felt in this story. I wanted to write this story because I know that ‘the mothers who couldn’t be’ often get a bad reputation. Many people don’t seem to understand that most of these mothers don’t give their children up because it’s the ‘easy thing to do’. Giving up a baby would have to be one of the hardest things in the world. I have heard shows where the mother of one of these children talked and said something like “There is not a day goes by that I don’t think of my baby, that I don’t wonder and pray for my baby.” I must say that these women are placing the love of their lives in usually a stranger’s hands to be raised and cared for. That has to take courage and more love for their baby then you might think.
Now just so someone is not confused I have never had a child. So I don’t know the trials of motherhood or giving up a baby. As far as I know I was not adopted. But I do have a cousin who was adopted. And my sister is acting as a single mother with the help of my parents and myself. So I don’t know everything where this is coming from but I have some idea.
I just want to make this clear, I do not think that people should become parents when they are teenagers or younger. But sometimes young people make this huge mistake. Babies are wonderful but they deserve to go to a home with two parents who are old enough not to be overly selfish parents.
I hope to have a read along version of the story on youtube soon. I need to finish it and then see if youtube will allow me to upload it. So look forward to that.
Now I want to say ‘Thank you’ to all those mothers out there, and I want to give an extra big ‘THANK YOU’ to all the single mothers and ‘the mothers who couldn’t be’. You are all a God sent gift of the heavens.
Thank you my readers and anyone with the kindness to review. Please let me know what you think. Thank you.
By: year of the snake (at fanfiction) aka. crescentmoon (at mediaminer). And now Opal-Dreams on DeviantArt.
The Mother Who Couldn’t Be
Hello, I am Umaio and I have a story to tell…
Once when I was very young things were very different. I was fourteen at the time… I met a man, he was free like the air… he captivated me…
I wish I had made different choices but I was young, too young, but I thought that I was old enough. And he didn’t tell me any different. He never even tried to turn me away. He was young too just older than myself. He was sixteen. His name was Fiyo. He was the air… he was freedom… he was an air-bender.
I never could air-bend even though both my parents could. My parents were very upset when they found out about Fiyo and me. We lived close to the Western Air-Temple and Fiyo, he live with a group more nomadic than ourselves. They were visiting the temple when I met Fiyo. He had been flying and hit a bird on mistake. He landed with the bird in his arms right by the stream where I was sitting.
He was beautiful and wild like the bird in his arms. The bird was terrified. And it wouldn’t hold still to be treated. I offered the teen my help. Together we got the bird’s wing wrapped and let it hop away when we got distracted in each other’s eyes. His eyes were grey and he had hair nearly covering his air-bender tattoo. His hair was brown like a platypus-bear’s fur. His grey eyes held my own green-grey eyes for only a moment but it felt so much longer. It was like his eyes bored into my soul. At that second I didn’t understand that because of this boy my life would forever be different.
I understand now that if we had just been on separate paths more than we were none of the following things would happen. But I didn’t choose to be on a separate path I wanted to be near him. He treated me special, like I wasn’t just a girl, like I was a precious friend. No other boy who visited here had ever done that, certainly no air-bender treated me as highly as he did.
We would walk together and talk. We’d laugh. He took me on his glider once. It was exhilarating. It was amazing to be up so high. To feel the wind in a way you never could on land. To be free of gravity. If only for a moment.
There was a festival while his group was sticking around. It was there that we realized what a connection we had formed. He danced with me all that evening. It was the closest thing to flying I could do without an air-bender’s help. And with an air-bender as my dance partner there might as well have been no ground at all.
It was that night when I should have been abed that I met him, that we went past the bonds of friendship too fast… it was that night that I thought would bond us forever…
Soon I found out I was pregnant and two days after I did my parents found out. I still hadn’t told Fiyo and his group was leaving at the end of the week. What happened was pure disaster.
My parents were furious enough that I was un-wed and pregnant but adding to that that the man was part of an ultimate nomadic group of air-bender made their anger worse. But they would make the man do right by me. I would be an honest woman even if it killed me.
The wedding day was set for two days away. Fiyo was unhappy with the marriage and I was being shunned by the people all around me. Fiyo blamed me for my pregnancy and claimed the baby couldn’t be his. That he wasn’t old enough to be a father. While that was true that he wasn’t old enough to be a proper father, the way he meant it was untrue; he was the father of my baby.
The night before my wedding I was being held in my room against my will. I wanted to talk to Fiyo one more time before we were wed; try to make him not hate me… but my parents wouldn’t allow it.
The next day rose, Fiyo was gone.
I was left alone with the shame of being both an un-wed mother and being jilted. My parents kicked me out and I left the area. I hoped maybe I could find Fiyo or at least someone who would take me in when the time came.
I traveled east towards the Eastern Air-Temple. I walked most of the way; I hitched rides when I could. Hitching rides became easier the larger I got. I found that claiming I was going to visit my husband’s mother for the birth and had a long way to travel was better than telling the truth. No one really wants to help someone who did something so shameful. And so I claimed that I was married and my husband was away on business thus making my trip to my mother-in-law’s imperative. The people I met were much kinder to a married although young mother than an unmarried one.
I made it to the temple just half a week before my baby was born. The nuns there helped me birth my baby. It was a little boy. He was born with thick brown hair and very dark eyes. The nuns explained to me that a baby’s eyes will change in the first few months, the final color would be chosen usually within six months. He was gorgeous and perfect. He was sweet and he was mine.
The nuns knew I was a single woman but they didn’t care. “Everyone has a past…” they’d say. I found that the Mother Superior had been wed twice each man treated her worst than the last. Finally to escape her abusive husband she fled to the monastery for safety and hadn’t left. Another girl maybe four years older than me had been a thief. She was caught and was brought to the closest temple so a wise air-nomad could judge her and tell the man what to do. It was there she found her way to being a nun.
I loved my baby very much. I wanted to keep him forever even with the screaming that woke me up at night and the constant diaper changes. He was mine and I loved him dearly.
The nuns talked to me about giving my baby up to be raised elsewhere by someone else. I refused outright. They asked me to just listen to the benefits and disadvantages first. They had been so kind to me that I agreed to listen with the intent to keep my baby anyway no matter what they said.
They talked of how these people he would be going to would be kind to him; they would nurture him and love him as I did. But they would let him make mistakes so he could learn from them. That these people had much experience raising little boys to be great men. They also said that I would rarely if ever see my baby again that he would not know a mother’s love. That he would be one of many boys. But that he would have a mentor, he would have the father that he wouldn’t have with me.
They continued to say that if I kept the baby past the age of two I would have to leave as boys weren’t allowed to live in the monastery past the age of two. That I would have to earn my own way and support a growing child. That with him I would still be away from him a lot because I would have to work all the time. That things would only get harder for me and my baby. I knew some of how the world worked. I realized that I and my baby would likely starve. That we probably would not have a home. But I was selfish. I didn’t want to be separated even if it meant harm to the person I loved most. Even if it meant my baby would suffer.
It was nearing the time my baby would turn two and I was getting ready to take my baby and leave. No one would separate us I would make sure of that. He was all I had. He was more important to me than any of the friends I had at the temple more important than his father had been or my parents. Or my wellbeing, or his. Now I know that the only thing that had been more important to me was myself. I didn’t want to deal with the pain that would accompany separating. I was being a selfish little sixteen year old, which would have been just fine if another life didn’t depend on mine. I was so terribly attached to my son. Asking me to part with him was like asking me to part with my heart.
A month before I would have to leave three monks from the Southern Air-Temple showed up. The monks were there for two other babies, they were twin boys whose mother had died in child birth. I watched the way the youngest monk, he could have been my dad, treated the babies and the monk-in-training they had brought with them. The monk-in-training was twelve. The man was so kind to them and so good with the kids. He was even kind with the little girls that ran around this temple. Would I be able to give my baby who was showing signs of being an air-bender that? Would I be able to teach him how to bend air? Would I be too tired to care properly for my baby? It was then that I realized what I was fighting so hard to prevent was just what my baby deserved, the best I could give him. I wouldn’t be able to give him a steady home; I likely would be unable to provide him consistent meals. I wouldn’t be able to provide him with a male role model. But they could. The only thing they couldn’t give him was me; they couldn’t give him a mother and a father…
I thought a lot about that, I thought about it all. The only thing I wish they could provide for my boy was the one of the things I couldn’t provide either, a whole family, a mother, father and children. I cried when I made my decision. Gathering the giving nature I didn’t have I talked to the man, Gyatso. I gave him my baby and asked him to raise him and give him all the love I would be too far away to give. He agreed, he would do as I wished.
I cried that night. I cried again watching them leave. I kissed my baby for the last time. And I gave a note to Gyatso to give to my baby when he was older. I wanted him to know I loved him more then I could possibly love myself.
I spent the following month crying. Sometimes I begged the nuns to restrain me so I wouldn’t go after my baby and take him away from what would be a better life. I was in agony without my baby. But I had to let him go, I had too! I wanted better for him then what I could give him! I had to do it for him! Oh I’m getting this scroll all tearstained. Please forgive my tears.
After the first month I stopped needing to be restrained from going after my son but my love for him still filled my bosom. Every second of every day I thought of my son. I wondered what he was doing, how big he was getting, what he was or would soon be learning. I couldn’t get him off my mind. At night I prayed for him. He was still my son even if I would likely never see him again. And that very thought cut deeper than any knife could, stung more then any pain. But I knew he would be provided for and well looked after.
In penitence for the sin that conceived my baby I became a nun. I didn’t regret having my baby, he was a blessing and I just knew that one day the world would think of him as such. I only regretted that he was conceived and born out of wedlock. I would give anything to do that over to give my baby the home and family all babies deserve. I would work for the wellbeing of those I came in contact with and hope that in return the monks treated my baby well.
After a year I got a letter from the Southern Air-Temple, the temple where my boy was staying. The letter proclaimed that my son was the next avatar. That in his hands the balance of the world rested. In my little three year old’s hands. I couldn’t believe it. My son was the avatar. I couldn’t stop the tears. At that point I became even more grateful that my boy was with the monks who could help and teach him all the things he would need to know before he would have to travel the world to find teachers in the other elements. I hadn’t felt so humbled since the day his perfect little form was put in my hands. My baby was the avatar…
That night I cried and cried and prayed harder than I had in a long time. ‘Please let my baby be safe! Please help him on his journey. He isn’t just my greatest treasure anymore he is the world’s greatest treasure. Please, please spirits of heaven and earth, water and fire, protect and guide my baby, my boy.’
That was the last I heard of him for three years. The next I heard of him was when a group of young six year old boys from his temple came to visit with some of the monks to pick out a baby Flying-Bison. When I heard they were coming I went and begged Mother Superior to let me take her place. I begged her to let me be the one to introduce the boys to the Bison.
She allowed me to. I was so thankful, but I had to dress up like her.
I watched the children wondering with one was mine, until he came up, his grey eyes were just like my baby’s, and like Fiyo’s. I watched him intently. He was so big! So beautiful! I had to fight the tears. My baby was right in front of me. I was jealous of a Flying-Bison! That Bison got to do what I wanted to, he got to kiss and hold my baby. Though it hurt I refused to turn away from the painful scene. I wouldn’t miss any of the precious moments that were so few.
Later that day while the children were getting ready for their supper Gyatso found me. He said to me, “I’ve never known Sister Iio to be so generous when it comes to Sky-Bison companion day. It’s her favorite part of being the Mother Superior. You must really touch her heart.”
I just smiled and Gyatso told me some of the things Aang, as he had been named, had been doing in the past four years. He told me some of the techniques that he excelled at and how he was learning how to use a glider in two months when the bison would be big enough to catch him if he fell. Gyatso was certain that Aang would master that in a heartbeat. I could tell that my Aang was as close to Gyatso’s heart as if he was his own son. I knew I made the right choice this time with the man that would be his ‘father’.
I refused to cry the short week Aang and his young friends were at the Eastern Air-Temple. This was a happy time. Even if I never had any more contact with him while he was there I got to see him and that was enough. I could hurt when he was gone, but while he’s here I will be glad.
That was the last time I saw my son, my Aang.
But that wasn’t the last time I thought of him. There were times that the anguish of not having him was more painful then I could bear. There were a lot of times I wished to hold him near. But I knew I had done what was best for him and that Gyatso would take care of him. I still thought of him whenever my mind was not occupied, and prayed for him unceasingly. But I was learning to be content with knowing he was alive and okay.
No one can imagine the pain of what came next. No one has the capacity to hold the pain that was brought out by a simple and short letter. My son was gone. He had run away because the monks were going to go against my wishes and send him to another teacher! He left just before a massive storm hit and they couldn’t find him. Gyatso had sent the letter, he was devastated. He said he never had the chance to tell Aang of me, but he thought that perhaps he had found out anyway and maybe he came here to find me.
I wrote back that he hadn’t shown up. That I’d stay here for a week or two in case he did then I would be out there looking for him unless I got I note saying he was back. I sent the note knowing full well that he wasn’t coming here. I could feel it he was lost to the world. He was not dead just gone. Just completely and totally unreachable.
The pain that retched in my heart, the heart of a mother who would never see her child again is such a hard burden to bear. Unless you have suffered that pain you know nothing of what I felt. Unless you have felt that agony you have only scratched the surface of what pain can be.
I hope the tears smudging this page don’t block my words from coming through.
After a week was up I left. I went straight to the Southern Air-Temple. I didn’t stay there very long. I moved on the Flying-Bison I borrowed from the Eastern Air-Temple towards the South-Pole. My heart tugged me in that direction. It knew where Aang was even if I didn’t.
There was a tribe of water-benders in the frozen lands of the South-Pole. It is there that I found Gyatso. He was trying to enlist the water-benders to help find Aang. He didn’t tell them that Aang was the avatar; just the fact that he was a young boy was heart wrenching enough for some of the water-benders to volunteer. But even with all us looking we couldn’t find him.
The ship I was on was captained by a hard man with a good heart. He was constantly trying to make sure the worried mother on deck was okay. I kept telling him the direction my heart was telling me my son was. But after going over and over that spot he said there was no way that the boy was there unless the fish were nibbling at his flesh.
After searching for three days Gyatso knew we wouldn’t find him. He would remain unfound until he was ready to be found. Gyatso took me back to the Southern Air-Temple where I had to be nursed back to health. I was out on the deck at all hours and had gotten very sick in those three days.
It was nearly mid-summer when I was well again. I immediately took off to look elsewhere for my boy.
Just a month after I left I heard that the Fire Nation had attached the Air-Temples, every single one of them was left with no survivors. And I prayed then that my son didn’t come back in this time of war and sudden fear. The Fire Nation had left us with nothing. And I didn’t want my sweet son to see this. I didn’t want him to have to deal with this war. I began praying the Aang would never be found, that the war would never be his burden to end.
Time is getting short for me. I know it. There were records in the Temples of all the Air-Nomad people. And they have been after the Sister that wasn’t in the Eastern Air-Temple. I know they think my son is with me, but he is not. I am here in this cave alone. There is nothing in here but me and this paper.
Soon I will go back to the Eastern Air-Temple and I will hide this note in the Sky-Bison barracks. I put it there in the hopes that it will not get burned. So that one day people will read this and remember the love of mothers’ is more then anything they will experience on earth.
Now I add one final wish……
I hope someday this scroll falls into your hands my sweet little Aang. I hope it will so you will know the love of the mother who couldn’t be.
Aang please forgive me for not giving you a life in a home with two parents and more love then you could possibly hold in a lifetime. But that wasn’t in my power to give you. I am so sorry.
I love you Aang and my last breath will be the proof of it,
Your Mother,
Umaio
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Hi everyone! What a sad letter huh? I wrote this for Mother’s Day. And I dedicate it to all the ‘mothers who couldn’t be’. I hope that the message of the love of mothers, even those mothers who gave up their children is felt in this story. I wanted to write this story because I know that ‘the mothers who couldn’t be’ often get a bad reputation. Many people don’t seem to understand that most of these mothers don’t give their children up because it’s the ‘easy thing to do’. Giving up a baby would have to be one of the hardest things in the world. I have heard shows where the mother of one of these children talked and said something like “There is not a day goes by that I don’t think of my baby, that I don’t wonder and pray for my baby.” I must say that these women are placing the love of their lives in usually a stranger’s hands to be raised and cared for. That has to take courage and more love for their baby then you might think.
Now just so someone is not confused I have never had a child. So I don’t know the trials of motherhood or giving up a baby. As far as I know I was not adopted. But I do have a cousin who was adopted. And my sister is acting as a single mother with the help of my parents and myself. So I don’t know everything where this is coming from but I have some idea.
I just want to make this clear, I do not think that people should become parents when they are teenagers or younger. But sometimes young people make this huge mistake. Babies are wonderful but they deserve to go to a home with two parents who are old enough not to be overly selfish parents.
I hope to have a read along version of the story on youtube soon. I need to finish it and then see if youtube will allow me to upload it. So look forward to that.
Now I want to say ‘Thank you’ to all those mothers out there, and I want to give an extra big ‘THANK YOU’ to all the single mothers and ‘the mothers who couldn’t be’. You are all a God sent gift of the heavens.
Thank you my readers and anyone with the kindness to review. Please let me know what you think. Thank you.