I had a mom once.
I don't remember her any more.
It's not even quite three years yet.
The only reason I remember what she looks like is because I have a picture.
I don't remember how she sounded,
I don't remember her mannerisms,
How she smelled.
I can't tell you something she'd be likely to say.
I don't think I even remember her birthday.
She died less than a month before my 13th birthday though.
I remember.
Yea that I remember.
The last day of March.
She'd been in the hospital a while, maybe a week, maybe 2, maybe less. I can't remember.
They thought she just had an allergic reaction to her new medication for her MS.
At least that's what I was told.
I found out most things I was told were lies.
But she didn't know she was gonna die, that I know wasn't a lie.
Nobody knew that.
She was kinda swollen up anyway, and she didn't want me to see her like that, so I just stayed with my cousins and I didn't visit her.
Not once.
At least, that's why I was told I didn't go visit her.
Could've been a lie, how should I know.
I was told she was doing better that night.
I went to bed, and I was told the doctors said she was doing better, she was gonna be home soon.
I don't think that was a lie, I don't want to believe that was a lie.
I wasn't woken up with my cousins to go to school that morning.
I was fine with that, hay no school, woo.
I did ask why, when my aunt noticed I was awake.
She said my Grammy was coming down from Texas, we were gonna meet her at the airport.
Well my Grammy did come down, but that was not the reason, and we did not go to meet her.
I threw on a shirt before I went downstairs after everyone left.
She told me to sit on the couch.
She said she didn't want to tell me this.
Tell me what?
She said she knows the doctors thought she was doing better.
That's when I knew.
But you see, it's not really there yet.
It's just creeping in through the back door, real slow like.
You're aware it's there, but you can't admit it, you don't want it in here, you can't let it in here.
So you try to shut the door on it.
And in my mind I'm going "No. No, that's not possible. This is a joke, a horrible joke. That's not possible, things like that don't happen to me. Not to me. No."
And she says she's very sorry
She still hasn't stated it, she hasn't stated it.
And I'm whispering it now. "No. No. No."
Or maybe I wasn't.
But could feel the No's. That's all I could think.
That room in my mind was completely empty, cold, numb, bright white and empty.
And creeping in the crack of the back door, it's coming in.
And you start to shut the door on it.
You try.
You try so hard.
You slam it repeatedly.
Over and over and over again.
That's all you have the mental capacity for, you see.
Shut it out, shut it out, stay out stay out.
But you see, you're empty. You don't have the strength to keep doing this.
And then suddenly, each time you slam the door it's weaker than the last.
And it creeps in.
And you know you can't stop it.
But you keep trying.
Until you're barely pushing the door anymore, and it's already in the kitchen, and yet you're still trying to close the door on it.
And then you stop.
And she says that your mom passed away peacefully in her sleep, at least she was feeling better that night. She even said she was feeling better.
And then it explodes.
And that thing creeping in, oh boy is it in. And you turn and you stare at it and it grows, it grows faster than anything you've ever seen.
It engulfs you, and it engulfs your empty room, and it engulfs your empty home.
And everything is gone.
You collapse, and there's something in the way you cry that was never there before.
It's the most painful thing you've ever done.
And you're gasping for air, that's how hard you're crying, gasping.
And your mind can't do anything, nothing, nothing.
It's empty again, but it's not the same kind of empty.
It's black empty.
But it's still filled with that thing, that thing that was creeping.
Everywhere, everywhere
You can't see it, but it's everywhere, it is the black, but it's so black you can't even see it.
And suddenly something inside of you is gone.
A whole organ system was yanked out of you.
You can't live like that, you can't.
And you're trying so hard to get what was pulled out back.
So hard, you're more desperate than you have ever been and ever will be in your life.
And you're gasping.
And you're gasping.
And you need it back.
You don't know what it is, what do you need, what do you need.
But you need it.
You need it.
It's like lava pouring down the side of a volcano.
It stops eventually.
Now, at this point in time, the black thing is gone.
And you're in your empty, white room.
It's tainted with the black thing though.
You can't see the stains on the walls,
But you can feel them.
You're not crying anymore.
Tears roll down maybe, you're not even aware.
Nothing is real, you see.
That's all.
Nothing is real.
And you know how it is.
It's clear, it's plain in front of you.
But now it's just a fact. An empty fact.
And that's it, you're done.
You'll be a little non-responsive.
You made the bearer of bad news cry too.
You'll lay down with her, she'll give you tissues.
But you're done.
You'll take a drive.
Drive to the sea.
You and your mom used to do that sometimes, down the bay. She loved the ocean, she loved the beach.
So you'll take a drive down to the beach, part on the dock area.
Talk a bit.
She liked the ocean.
That's what you say.
She was great.
That's what you hear back.
And you go home.
The people next door want to see you.
Oh I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
Please stop.
This must be so hard.
Don't touch me.
Come in the other room so you can see everbody.
I don't want any more hugs.
But it's in your mind you talk, you can't say words to these people.
Then you go through the same routine over and over again. Hugs and hugs and kisses and apologies and pity.
I don't care.
Please let go of me.
Really I'm fine.
This only lasts three or four days.
It could of been a week, it's not like you actually bother to remember anything about this.
Sometimes you simply cry because after all the fuss everyone makes you might as well give them some reason to feel worse for you. Oh look, she's so sad, she has it so tough.
Then you immediately regret doing it.
Because you don't want that attention, you don't want them to fawn over you.
Don't look at me, don't pay attention to me.
I want to watch a movie somewhere else, I don't want you people around.
But you're over it by day 5.
After a week you're back to normal.
You put it somewhere very far away in your mind.
In a month most times you won't even remember life was ever any different.
You stay out of school for two weeks.
Just because you hate school.
You hate school because you don't actually have any real friends.
Because you don't like yourself.
Because school sucks.
Your class sends you flowers.
The teachers give you "all the time you need" to make up your work.
You don't take more than two days.
Everyone is sensitive to you.
But you're over it.
Nothing was ever any different than it is now.
And sometimes at night you get lonely.
And you cry yourself to sleep.
Takes you a few hours though.
You want someone to hear and find you, come down and hold you.
But the moment you hear footsteps above, you get quiet and afraid.
You want to be found so desperately, but you hide. And you know that's how it'll always be.
Sometimes you get up in the night during the summer and stand outside. Walk around, go on the swing, feel the rain.
You talk to God.
Why? Because there's nobody else.
And you don't want to talk to yourself, you're no comfort to yourself.
You need someone, you have noone.
So talk to God.
Go inside and sleep on the couch because you simply can't go back in your room alone and sleep down there. You can't.
And when they ask why you're on the couch you say you got warm and came upstairs near the open windows.
And the day goes like nothing ever happened.
Like nothing will ever happen.
Like this is how it's always been.
From every three nights to once a week, eventually once a month, eventually once every two. Once you went four months, or maybe five.
But then you break, and at night you cry yourself to sleep.
And now you always feel alone.
And when you feel like someone else is getting farther away from you, you feel that lonliness, and you cry.
And noone ever knows.
By the morning you're perfectly fine, happy, joking.
You don't even actively remember crying yourself to sleep.
Unless you think about it, but you don't.
You are a master of not thinking.
It's what you're whole life is based upon.
It is who you are.
Otherwise you'd realize you're pathetic. You're pathetic, alone, miserable. You don't try and you could be so much better, and you used to have a different life. That's the worst part, you used to have a different life. But you don't think. Everything is as it has always been.
Never any different.
You never went to therapy.
You're two biggest sins are pride and envy, and pride is way too big to let you ever deign yourself to that.
You will never go to therapy.
You did not go to the grief camp.
You do not talk to people about how you feel.
When they ask you questions, you make a joke, you say it's all good, and you avoid answering.
That would require you to think
But that's just the center of it.
Forget about the custody battle.
The people who wanted you, the decision you had to make, that everybody knew you made.
You haven't talk to that side of the family since.
You might have loved them.
You don't think about it though.
So you can't really remember.
And life goes on.
Everything is as it always has been.
You have friends, you have family in their own way. You're a happy person. You're very lucky.
You have no right to complain about what's happened to you, many people are much worse off.
You're life had plenty of other deals in it too, of course.
But you were so young, you weren't aware.
Mom's just going to the doctors, she isn't feeling so well.
She went to a mental hospital, you find out nine years later.
And lots of things.
Lots and lots of things.
Tons of bad people, doing tons of bad things.
You don't find out for years.
Lies to protect you.
Good intentions.
But, makes you doubt everything.
Everything you knew was a lie, pretty much.
It makes sense why, oh it really really does.
But now you doubt everything.
And life, life is as it's always been, and that's how it will always be.