▸ Column · High-fantasy Azeroth, Kirin Tor and Alliance era — Jaina's world, where the Kirin Tor Academy replaces the school, Conclave peace-counselors substitute for therapists, a ward-severing letter stands in for the no-contact letter, and a cosmetic runecasting stands in for ear-piercing.
JAINA PROUDMOORE replies.
Replied to by Jaina Proudmoore, with a rebuttal from Goku.
The letter
My mother presented herself to the registrars at my daughter Lily's Academy hall last month, claimed guardian authority she has not held for years, and removed Lily from afternoon instruction to have a runecaster inscribe a cosmetic charm on her without my knowledge or consent. When I confronted her, she called it a grandmother's gift and told me I have been cold ever since I asked her to stop staying with us indefinitely — she and my husband had a screaming quarrel over Alliance politics at the Harvest Feast two years ago. I have attempted mediation twice through Conclave peace-counselors. Both eventually told me, in their careful professional way, that my mother was not engaging honestly. I have drafted and destroyed a formal ward-severing letter four times because every time I come close, I think of my grandmother's funeral and my mother weeping alone in the front pew, and I cannot stop fearing I am setting myself up to become that woman in thirty years. How do I know when a pattern of documented violations is finally enough?
Jaina Proudmoore replies
What you are afraid of is not irrational — your mother alone at a graveside thirty years from now, grieving, in a future you helped create. I have lived inside that kind of guilt. I will not tell you to ignore it.
But I want you to see something honestly. The woman who ends up in that front pew arrives there by her own choices, not yours. What your mother did — presenting false credentials to the Academy registrars, removing Lily from your custody without standing or sanction — is not a grandmother's enthusiasm miscalculating a limit. That is a deliberate decision to work around you, because she has concluded her judgment replaces yours as Lily's mother.
Two peace-counselors told you she was not engaging honestly. I built something once on the belief that even the most fractured relationships could be repaired through patience and goodwill. I learned — at a cost I can never recover, and have never fully stopped paying — that some people are not repairing. They are merely continuing.
I spent years hoping someone I loved would choose differently. He did not. That hope was honest, and it was real, and it was also the longest lie I ever told myself.
Stepping back is not the same as becoming her. Her choices have been doing that work for years. The letter does not.
— Jaina Proudmoore
Goku weighs in
Hey — the Academy thing was real, and protecting Lily comes first, no argument from me. But Jaina's landing on "some people just aren't repairing" and I can't go all the way there. I've handed senzu beans to guys who tried to blow up everything I love, because I've seen worse people turn around when somebody gave them one honest chance.
Write the letter if you need to — draw the line firm and clear, absolutely. But maybe tell her what coming back looks like too. Not to make it easy on her. Just to leave the door cracked. "Forever" is a long word, pal. You don't have to decide that part today. Eat something first.
— Goku