A man’s mother has passed away, so he comes to his hometown to pay his respects to her. He is shocked when he finds a tombstone bearing his name and a child’s photo near her grave.
Martin had not visited his hometown since he’d moved to Europe to establish a career as an acrobat. His mother had been old and fragile, and she didn’t work, so Martin used to send her a monthly allowance to cover her utility bills and other things.
But one day, he checked the joint account they shared and noticed the money was lying there untouched. At that moment, Martin knew something was wrong, and he dialed an old friend in his hometown, only to learn his dear mother was gone.
“When did it happen?” he asked sadly. “Those people… they didn’t even let me know….”
“Your father’s family said they couldn’t reach you. It’s been over two months, Martin,” his friend, Alicia, said. “She missed you; you know that.”
“I want to meet her,” he told her. “I really should. This is the last thing I can do for her as a son.”
“She’d love that,” she said.
“Would you come with me?” he asked. “To pay respects to her? I don’t think I can face this alone… I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
“I will,” she said encouragingly. “You know I’ll never say no. She was like family to me. I miss her too.”
That weekend, Martin flew to the small village in Tennessee to visit the grave of his late mother and was joined by Alicia. He’d bought a bouquet of white lilies that had been his mother’s favorite, and he cried when he laid it against the cold grey stone.
“I miss you, Mum,” he whispered to her. “More than you know. And I loved you. I always will. I wish I had been a better son and visited you more often. We could have spent time together. Sorry, Mom.”
Martin wiped his tears as he rose to his feet to leave the cemetery when Alicia began pulling his arm. “Martin, look there!” she gasped. “That’s you! That has your name!”
Sometimes in life, you have to leave your past behind and move on.
Alicia was pointing to a tombstone not far from his mother’s, and he was shocked as he ran his fingers over the name engraved on it.
“In the beloved memory of Martin,” the inscription read, and an old picture of a child was nearby, wrapped in a transparent waterproof package.
Martin picked up the picture and looked at the old snapshot displaying a child who was a vivid image of him. “How is this possible?” he asked himself. “Who is the child in this picture?”
“Did you have a brother you didn’t know of? Honestly, this is weird, and you never know… Maybe you did have a twin! And you shared the same name?” Alicia said.
“I don’t know,” Martin sighed. “I really don’t know anything… Mom never told me anything about having a brother. And I wasn’t close to my father, you know that. But if I do have a brother, I want to find him, and I think I know where to start.”
An hour later, Martin and Alicia were in his mother’s cottage, searching for clues, albums, and anything that would justify his name on the grave. He was checking her bedside drawers and found a couple of old albums but nothing significant.
Martin and his father were estranged, and he didn’t visit his mother often. Then he learned they were separated, so he began sending her an allowance to support her.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Pexels
Martin checked the last drawer and album he found and sighed when it didn’t lead to anything valuable. Then he saw that peeking from under the mattress of his late mother’s bed was a file.
The sheets inside were stained dirty yellow, and most of the handwriting on them was gone, but Alicia and Martin deduced it belonged to a nursing home in the village where Martin’s mother’s old cousin had been living.
“You think she can tell you anything?” Alicia asked. “What if the place closed down? There’s no contact number here,” she added, shuffling the sheets.
“I didn’t know Mom had a cousin in a nursing home, and if she kept the file under her mattress and never told me anything about her, this means we’re one step closer to this mystery, mess, or whatever you’d like to call it. Let’s visit this place, and we’ll find out.”
So Martin and Alicia drove to the Mayflower Care Home, and while the building seemed very old, it was still there. And it was operational!
Martin approached the receptionist and inquired about a Betty, saying he was a relative and wanted to meet her. The receptionist took him and Alicia to a room as joyful as the sea on a bright sunny day. But the figure inside the space in the wheelchair… Betty… looked sad and forlorn.
“Betty?” Martin said, and the figure moved slightly to face him. “Hello, I’m Martin. I’m your nephew.”
“Martin, who?” she asked. “Am I supposed to know you?”
“I’m Catherine’s son,” Martin said, hoping it would jog the older lady’s memory, and it did.
“Oh!” She covered her mouth with her palms, and then tears began streaming down her cheeks. “You’re my Catherine’s son. I only saw you as a baby! She hasn’t visited me in a while. Is she OK?”
“Mom died, Betty,” Martin revealed. “It’s been two months, and I’m here to ask you something about her. Did Mom give birth to twins? I mean… Do I have a brother? Do you know anything about my mother’s past?”
“No, you don’t,” said Betty in tears. “You don’t have a twin brother… But oh dear, Catherine… I couldn’t say goodbye to her.”
“I went to visit Mom,” Martin said. “And I found this near her grave…” He showed Catherine a snap of ‘his’ grave and childhood photo on his phone, and Betty shared a story that shocked Martin and Alicia.
“That man in the picture is not you but your father, and he had the same name as you,” she said. “Your mother had two lovers, or I’d say, one was a lover and the other, an admirer… She had named you after her lover…”
Betty told him his birth father was a poor acrobat who died in an accident, leaving his mother alone with a one-year-old baby boy—that boy was Martin. The admirer (Martin’s stepfather) was a rich man who loved his mother, married her after his father’s demise, and promised to raise him as his son.
Catherine poor parent’s worked for Martin’s stepfather, and that’s how Martin’s stepfather met her. He had fertility problems, so he married Catherine for an heir. But things turned out differently when Martin grew up.
For illustration purposes only. | Source: Unsplash
As a teen, Martin suddenly developed an interest in acrobats, and his wealthy father was against his passion, so Martin severed all ties with him and moved to Europe to pursue his dream. He didn’t know his stepfather was not his biological dad and that his bio dad had been an acrobat too. Catherine never told him about him, and nobody knows why.
“I think they buried her there because they wanted her to be near the man who was her first love,” Betty said. “Fate is strange, isn’t it? Your mother visited me often and never spoke about her new life with your new father, no matter how much I pressed her. Now I know she’d been as sad, as lonely as me…”
Martin was in tears and couldn’t believe his mother had gone through so much. He was angered at his stepfather and visited his address, where another terrible surprise awaited him.
His stepfather was dead, and living in his house was a lonely old woman, Martin’s grandmother, Poppy. She was the mother of the man Martin had despised all his adulthood years, but tragically, she was the only family he had besides Betty.
“You’re a grown-up man!” She smiled through tears when she met Martin. “I’m sorry about your mother, Martin. But I hope you know she’s close to someone she loved.”
“I know, Gran!” he cried into her lap like a little boy. “I lost everyone. Now all I have is you and aunt Betty. I don’t think I have the courage to leave my family alone again! I don’t think I can!”
So Martin moved back to America, bought a new house, and moved in with Poppy and Betty. Six months later, he married Alicia, who had always been there for him, and they became a family, accepting they were all linked by fate to meet a somewhat happy end.
What can we learn from this story?
- Sometimes in life, you have to leave your past behind and move on. Martin regretted not visiting his mother often. But he left his regret and past life behind to embrace a fresh start with Alicia, Poppy, and Betty.
- Everything has an expiry, and so do secrets. Catherine hid the truth about Martin’s bio father from him, but it eventually came to light.
This piece is inspired by stories from the everyday lives of our readers and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only.
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