Dear June,
I’m sorry I didn’t save you. I’m sorry, I couldn’t. In these moments, I find I morn most—not what happened—but that I didn’t get to know you. You were not simply my mother. You were a woman who likely feared as I did. I imagine you were as scared as I. You were the one person who could understand. Our perfect and singular circumstance. You spoke of how your mother, my grandmother, was sent to an asylum. You gave little detail, but I’m certain it burdened you greatly. I have one vague memory of her. There was no recognition in her, nothing in those milky eyes. I wondered how long that had been true. What they poured into her system to void her. She never met me, and I wonder if she ever met you. If we ever really met each other. I knew in my soul, as if yours were my own, that’s why you’d never accept medication. Fearful of those milky eyes. Even if your husband, my father, played a role, there was much more than simply his malice at play. You needed someone more loving than your father, and when you’d realized you simply found him in another, I was your only option. Bear a child that must care. Ask her to do what you could not.
You named me Dionysia, in definition, meaning a festival in Dionysus honor. Dionysus, though less known for, was the god of insanity. Likely without malice, the name seemed to define me as the celebration of you. Me a deliverance for your madness. But there was no celebration. Us two, the only in attendance. And in an attempt to avoid the fate of our predecessor, we found a new destruction of our own.
I release you. In a way, I now understand.
Rest well,
Dye