The Promise of the Earth and the Love of a Mother

Timur didn’t know how long he had been kneeling in front of the old door, the paper crumpled between his fingers and his head full of confused thoughts. The spring air brought with it the scents of wet earth and wild flowers, but to him there was only an immense emptiness in his heart. Time was gone, and with it, his mother. That door, which had once represented the entrance to her home, was now only a threshold to grief and loss.

The house before him was the same, or at least it seemed so. The scars of the past, the marks of time on the wooden walls and the handmade curtains, everything remained the same. But for Timur, nothing could be the same. He had left his home years ago, looking for new opportunities, new hopes. But, when he returned, the only thing he found was the echo of the silence that his departure had left, the same emptiness he felt in his chest.

Sabina, the young woman who had been friends with his mother, was close to him, respecting his pain in silence. He said nothing, but his presence offered him a kind of comfort that Timur did not know how to accept. Finally, Sabina broke the silence, her voice soft, almost like a whisper, as she offered him a cup of water.

“Do you want to come in?” He asked, his tone full of understanding.

Timur looked up and, for a moment, looked at the house that had meant so much to him. The aged wooden walls, the creaky floor beneath her feet, the familiar aroma of the kitchen she never forgot. Everything was still as she remembered it, but something inside her told her that this place was no longer her home. Time had left scars, and he himself had turned away from everything he once loved.

“Grandma talked about you all the time,” Sabina said as she made tea. “He always said that if you came back, you didn’t want you to feel guilty. That you knew where your home was.

Timur did not answer. His eyes swept around the house, searching every corner for a vestige of his mother. The pendulum clock continued to mark the passing of the hours as slowly as it had done years before. On the table rested a basket of dry bread and a napkin embroidered with flowers, one of those that her mother knitted with such dedication. In a corner, a yellowed photograph: he, barely six years old, sitting on the lap of Rania, his mother. They were both laughing, a laugh that seemed distant, unattainable.

“She kept your letters in a box of cookies,” Sabina said, breaking the silence. He showed him the box, and inside, were Timur’s letters, wrinkled by the passage of time, but still legible. Letters in which, sometimes, he only said “I’m fine”. He had kept all his letters, as if in them was the promise of his return.

Sabina got up to make tea while Timur flipped through the letters, one by one, feeling the weight of each written word. The memories hit him hard: the absences, the unshared moments, the life he had left behind. Each letter was a reminder of his mother’s unconditional love, the love that never went away, even though he had drifted away.

“And his grave?” He finally asked, in a low voice, afraid of the answer.

“It’s on the hill, next to the apple tree. The one she herself planted. I went up there every afternoon, even in winter,” Sabina replied, with a sadness in her voice.

Timur nodded slowly. He knew he had to go see her, pay homage to the woman who had raised him, but also to the mother who had given him so much love and sacrifice. There was nothing else left of her, except that last bond. It was his only chance to say goodbye, to find some form of peace.

That same afternoon, he decided to walk to the hill. He picked wildflowers along the way. The tombstone was simple, with an inscription that read: Rania Aslanyan, mother of Timur and Saida. The apple tree, now old, seemed to offer shade, as if the whole place were preserved by the love his mother gave him. He knelt by the grave, carefully laying down the flowers, and took from his jacket a small cashmere scarf, the one he had brought back from one of his travels. He left it on the grave, as a symbolic act of farewell. He stood there, motionless, until the sun hid behind the mountains.

When he returned to the house, Sabina was waiting for him with a notebook in her hands.

“It’s yours,” he said, handing it to him gently. “I wrote things at night. Sometimes poems, sometimes just thoughts.

Timur opened the notebook and began to read. Every word written by his mother enveloped him in a mixture of pain and comfort. On one of the pages, he found a note dated a year before his death:

“I don’t know if you will come back, my son. But if you ever do, know that I never stopped loving you. If this house still stands, it will always be yours. If this family is still alive, it is also thanks to you. Because even though you weren’t there, you were always a part of us.”

Those words shattered him, but they also made him feel closer to his mother than ever. He finally understood the deep love she always had for him, the infinite patience she offered him despite his absence. It wasn’t his mother’s fault that he had wandered away. She had always been there, waiting for him.

That night, Timur spent the night in his old childhood room. For a long time, the mere thought of returning to this place had scared him. She remembered the pain of separation, the doubts, the absences. But now, for the first time in sixteen years, he slept without fear of the past. The weight of guilt had vanished. His mother had forgiven him long before he could forgive himself.

Early the next day, Timur left the house. He went to the village and spoke with the mayor and the neighbors. He had his mother’s house restored, donated books to the local school, and paid for the construction of a small park in his mother’s memory, next to the apple tree she had planted herself. She wanted to leave a lasting mark, something that would serve as a testament to the love she gave him and what she meant to the community.

He did not stay to live there. She knew her life was already somewhere else, but she came back every month. Every spring, the day she received that letter, she brought new flowers and sat by her mother’s grave, reading aloud excerpts from Rania’s notebook. It was his way of keeping her alive, of staying with her, of feeling her close, even if he couldn’t hug her.

Every year, when he arrived at his mother’s grave, Timur left her fresh flowers. He spoke to her silently, as if she could hear him, as if his presence was still there. I knew that a mother’s love is not forgotten. Just wait, for the child to return, for him to realize everything he left behind, for him to understand the sacrifice and unconditional love.

Timur began to fulfill the promise he had made to his mother. He took care of his family, doing what she would have wanted. Although he could never replace the lost time, he vowed that he would not let his mother’s memory fade. And even though his mother was gone, he knew he would always carry her with him in his heart.

Because a mother’s love never dies. It only waits. And as long as Timur lived, his mother would be with him, in every step he took, in every decision he made.