Mother To 100: Guess it's Goodbye

"So Mom, when is your next pregnancy going to be, seeing as Kathy and Zach have moved out?" asked an ever curious Sunny.

"Never," I replied simply.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"There comes a time in your life when you begin to realize all the many things you never paid attention to before."

"O-kay," he said slowly and awkwardly.

I sighed. It was true. I was quitting the challenge, although I didn't like to look at it that way. I mean, how could I continue the challenge? What was the point of it other than having the ability to say that you had had 100 kids. I loved them all dearly, of course, but why bring them into this torturous world with a shameful ghost mother? Not even with a good fatherly figure. Used to, they had Alex. But now, it's just me and them. Not a great combination.

The kids would come home with tears in their eyes. People who had made fun of them from being in a family of ghosts. Different is good, I would always tell them. But could I convince myself?

And having to live with the fact that my kids are growing older than I. It's not natural. Parents are not supposed to outlive their children. But then again, I'm not technically alive. Either way, I interact with them, and they're older than me. That isn't right in my mind, and I'm not sure than I can ever see it that way.

I'm living an unnatural life. Maybe I should have just let myself go. That is the natural way of things, and I don't like feeling as though I'm defying fate. If there is such a thing.

Besides, 33 children is plenty enough for me. I've realized that I've raised them, and haven't done much after. I should involve myself in my existing children's lives before creating new ones. Do my children feel neglected? Maybe this challenge wasn't such a great decision in the first place. I was young and naive, and what did it do? Luna is gone, I'm a single mother of 33 children, and I'm a ghost. Such a good life, huh?

I don't blame my kids, of course. Without me they wouldn't be here today, and I really really really do love them. But I can't budge the thought of how my life might have been if Luna really had stopped me from doing the challenge. She might still be alive . . . There's not a day that I don't think of her.

But what can I do? I can't go back in time. Or, at least, I wouldn't. That would be altering the laws of the world. Which I have done enough of. No, now it's time to live with my earlier decisions and now this one. This is probably one of the most complex decisions I have made in life. Sure, making the decision to start the challenge was tough, but I was so young that I just jumped into it instead of thinking ahead.

So, then, why should we be able to live the lives of humans even if we truly aren't? I can't simply beg Grim for death, obviously, but I can live like I am supposed to, can't I? I couldn't really leave because my children. As ghostly or not that they may be, they have lives to live that they couldn't because I brought them into this world as ghosts. It's unfair to them. I wonder if they feel this way..

On the outside they seem happy, but is that really the case, especially when they come home crying?

Rai and Ralyn asked to move out with Kathy and Zach, so I let them. I don't blame them for wanting to leave early.

So I've made the decision that we're going to leave. I haven't told the kids yet, but I believe it will be better for them to live with others like us. Might even give them a bit of closure. And if our time comes, then it comes. We will be ready for whatever may happen.

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