'les mis'. yeah, i know. you know it's my favorite musical, that i know all the words to all the songs, that i used to daydream about being in the show. i feel the emotions in the music...the sadness and the loss of those you love, the hope and dream of a better life, the desire to fight for what you believe you deserve. eponine's wish to be loved? i get it. valjean's work to be a better man? makes sense. but it wasn't until recently that i truly understood fantine and the agony she endured.
the pain of her love and her loss wasn't hard to comprehend. i think most all of us have endured such a loss at one point or another. what was beyond my grasp until now was her desperate desire to protect and care for her child, no matter the cost. yes, i understood--theoretically--that a mother would stop at nothing to make sure her child was safe. i'd seen it in my own mother, saw it in my friends who had children...and yet i myself could not understand that relentless drive to do any and everything for my child. that is, until june 23rd of last year.
i would walk through fire for charlotte. i would give all of my money, time, energy, everything for her. i would kill to protect her. i would die for her. willingly and without question. i almost did and would do it again. there's nothing i wouldn't do to protect my daughter, to take care of her, to make sure that she has everything she needs and never goes without. sacrifice, starve, suffer...i don't care. i don't know a mother who doesn't feel exactly the same way.
today, while sitting on the floor playing with charlotte and listening to the 10th anniversary concert soundtrack, i cried for fantine. not during 'i dreamed a dream', which is lovely and powerful (example: anne hathaway's shiny new oscar). no, my tears were flowing during 'fantine's death'. listening to her not only hallucinate seeing her precious child playing as she gets ready to sing a lullaby, but hearing her beg valjean to take her daughter into his keeping, to raise her and love her as his own as she waits for death...it just broke my heart. how very much fantine loved her cosette! she worked tirelessly--both in legal and illegal venues--to provide what she can to care for the best thing in her life. and in the end, when her life was ending, she made the final sacrifice to give her child--the light of her sad life--to a man she knew would be a father to her and would love her without letting her forget about the mother she lost.
when i look into charlotte's eyes, everything fantine did makes sense. it makes my heart ache to think of what that sacrifice must have done to her and what a incredible sense of loss she must have endured. it's the better spirit that comes of being a mother, one who loves her child more than anything in the world, that makes such an action possible. what an amazing testimony to the strength of a mother's love. charlotte is the best of my life, and though giving her up for any reason would feel like dying...well, i already said it. there's nothing i wouldn't do for her.
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