Life from Death 

By Liberty H. Durmaz

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“Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. 

John 5:24 

The broken glass crunched under my boots. I couldn’t help but wince slightly, old memories flashing back. I stood in the doorway of the small mobile home. Its interior was a mess. Bottles strewed the lonetable, cards littered the floor, and dull shadows hung about the walls though it was day outside. 

Like usual. 

I took a few steps, closing the door behind me. Silence. It was utterly silent. I looked ahead, my eyes searching beyond my body, towards the open adjoining room. There, I saw her. 

Mommy. 

As the thought entered, I couldn’t help but smile. Somehow, though I had grown up, I could never stop calling her that. 

She lay on her bed, covers drawn up, eyes closed in sleep. The same picture that always met my eyes upon entering. At least most of the time. 

But the cast on her arm was different and new. 

I sighed, not with sadness or weariness. I felt a quiet calm, a silent stillness within me. This strange, sweet Peace was something that had only recently found me. 

Taking up a chair from the table, I quietly walked towards the room. Her eyes were still closed. She hadn’t heard me. I suddenly stopped only a few feet from the door. 

Sing for me, Ash. 

I remembered her request from the last time we talked. She’d asked, but I didn’t. I was too angry. Too upset about what she’d told me. What she hadn’t told me. That I wasn’t her child. That I wasn’t Daddy’s child. 

I remembered it all, and now I was sorry for not singing. I couldn’t change the past, but I could change the future. 

I walked into her room while singing softly, setting the chair beside her bed

“The lilies white shine by the dark, deep banks, 

Calling their songs to thee,” 

Her eyes suddenly opened and looked up at me. They were filled with joy and sorrow. The left half of her face warped and twisted, utterly marred with scars and bruises. 

“They beckon bowing down their necks, 

Urging you to sing.” 

“Ash.” 

My voice trailed away as I sat beside her. Taking her left hand, the uninjured one, I covered it with both of mine. 

“I’m here, Mommy.” 

“You came,” she whispered. 

“I should have come sooner,” I said, giving her pale hand the gentlest squeeze. 

She abruptly turned her head away onto her pillow. “I’m hideous.” 

“I don’t care.” I gazed over her shoulders to her nose. I couldn’t see her face with it turned away. “Mommy, it doesn’t matter.” 

She suddenly turned back again, her eyes filled with tears. My heart leaped, though I hardly knew why. “Ash, why do you even care?” She blurted out, tears rolling down her half-smooth, half-scarred face. “I—” I began.. 

“Why would you come back for me at all?” 

“You’re my mother,” I replied firmly, though tears threatened to flood my face. I hugged her hands. “And, I love you. And, I’ve come back to take care of you. And, I’m sorry for not singing when you asked me to.” 

“Oh, Ash!” and she buried her face into my hands. 

I sat there, holding up my mother’s face, her tears sliding through my fingers. I leaned into her carefully, not wanting to jar her broken arm at all. 

Sniffling, she slowly raised her head. “I’m sorry for not telling you about your parents.”

Your parents. 

Despite myself, my heart clenched at the words. It still hurts. 

“I do wish you’d told me sooner,” I said with a gentle smile, dispelling the hardness desiring a place in my heart. 

“But, your name,” she continued, her voice still rough from the many smokes and recent lung damage, “your name fits you.” 

I wasn’t sure what she meant. I looked at her hand still held between mine. Now, I could see the wrinkles and creases etched in from age, abuse, and despair. Mommy was no longer fair and young like I remembered her to be. Somehow, I couldn’t see that when I’d last been with her…at the hospital…after the crash. 

I locked my eyes with hers. “What do you mean? My…” I hesitated, “my real name?” 

“No.” She faintly shook her head. “The one your father gave you. Remember those years ago, when we rode horses together?” 

I nodded, a lump in my throat at the remembrance of my childhood memory. 

“I said your name, Asha van Morte, meant ‘life from death’.” She gazed at me, her face simply earnest. “It’s true.” She removed her hand from mine and placed it on my cheek. 

I stared at her, hope rising within my heart. 

“It’s true,” she said again, tears in her eyes again. “You’ve changed. You’re…different. You’re not like me…you’re not like you anymore. You are life from death.” 

I leaned against my chair, letting her hand slip from my cheek. I caught it with both of mine. “Jesus changed me, Mommy.” I smiled. 

For the first time, she smiled at the mention of the One who’d found me. The One who had turned my life upside down. The One who had rescued me from all the darkness I’d once lived in..from the darkness my mother was living in. 

I squeezed her hand. 

She wasn’t done. “The drugs, the alcohol, the attention…it doesn’t…it doesn’t…” She broke off into a flood of tears, sobbing again. I sat caringly beside her, just holding her hand and being there. 

“It doesn’t fill,” I finished softly.

“I should have been a better mother,” she sobbed. 

“I should have been a better daughter,” I replied. “But, Mommy,” I tenderly lifted her wet face up. “We can’t change the past. It’s the past. But the future doesn’t have to be like the past. I’m proof of it! He can change us.” 

“Ash—” she broke. My heart started thumping. 

“You…think,” she whispered,“it might just work for me?” 

Joy flooded within me, nearly bursting my heart. This was my mother speaking! She was actually saying those words. Words she said she’d never say. 

“Yes, Mommy! I promise you, He will change you.” 

I suddenly broke into a song, one I’d sung for her many times before, but never with these words, and never with such meaning as now. My heart never before had flowed with such a melody. 

“The Lily White shines by the dark, deep banks, 

Calling His Song to thee,” 

He beckons bowing down His hands, 

Urging you to sing.” 

He was doing it! He was working in her! Like He’d said He would! Tears welled up in my eyes as I sang. Joyful tears. 

When my last note died, my mother looked into my eyes. 

“You think…He will?” she asked. 

“I know He will,” I replied without a shadow of doubt. “I know. He will give you life from death.”

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Since a young age, Liberty Durmaz had a passion for sharing stories that display great truths that praise the King. From little cats to chivalrous knights, haunted assassins to sailor dogs, her writing life has explored and adventured deep and far. She never has a dull moment when she could be creating worlds in her head. When not writing stories in her free time, she may be found training her dog, reading, writing letters, spending time with her family, or dreaming about Icelandic horses. She currently lives with her family in Paradise, Pennsylvania. To God be the glory!

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