He was nice up there. Stood there for so long – tall, but humble. Lean, yet fierce. I could always look up to him from my scrawny position on the ground. He was my protectorate, keeping me from the monsters under my bed or the roaches in the shower. He taught me how to talk, crawl, walk –eventually, how to change the oil in my car. He balanced out the teeter-totter that was home. He was the safe one, the normal one. Mostly.

But even statues cast shadows. Some days I would stand underneath him, freezing in the cold he splashed over us. Most days brought sun, but there were times we lived in overcast, where storm clouds would crop up at the wrong turn of a head, whipping us with lightning and shocking us with a side we had never seen before. We always forgave him, though. We liked him better. While his darkness left bruises, he was still the warrior of my childhood.

Until one day, when a shake of a bottle and an innocent question revealed what no one knew. He was plagued with the same disease we all were – his storms just as long, just as heavy. I realized that the pain he inflicted had a story behind it, but moreover that he was no one special. And suddenly, without warning, my stomach dropped and the statue fell, shattering in a thousand puzzle pieces beneath my bare feet.