Content warnings for depression, suicide, and death
Norra
There’s Norra Wexley, a woman so clearly broken by war. Trying her best to do right by her child. Trying her best to love him, to keep him safe, to help him grow. I watch her succeed in moments, and fail spectacularly in others. It isn’t her fault when she fails. Not fully her fault, anyway. The woman is dogged by war. Scars from the atrocities she witnessed. Nightmares from the torture, psychological and physical, she endured for too many years.
My heart aches as the critics throws stones at her for not being the perfect mother. She often is emotionally distant, she often acts out of terror and fear. Post traumatic stress disorder manifests itself in unpredictable ways, but the critics insist her failings are entirely a flaw of character, rather than the never-ending terrors of watching her friends and family die around her. Her failures are not virtuous by any means, but they are not bad. They don’t make her a bad person, a bad parent.
I watch over time as the woman gets help to confront the nightmares of the past. I see her slowly heal. Though the nightmares will always be there, I watch her finally find some semblance of peace and belonging in her world.