All My Own (Part 2)

There they were. My mother and father were in the distance, smiling, waving. I started walking toward them, but then broke into a run. They too were now running, but their smiles suddenly faded into looks of horror. Tears were now streaming down their faces, and then they stopped running, walking and then moving altogether. I kept running, though, yet it seemed I was not reaching them. Finally, I too gave up. We stood staring at each other, neither daring to move. We had admitted defeat. After a moment the two turned and began to walk away. No matter how hard I screamed, they would not stop. It began to rain and I was alone. Alone in the rain, left, forgotten. Worst of all, it was all my fault. If only I had tried harder, run faster, cared more. If only I could have reached them in some way. It was my fault, all my fault.

I awoke with a start, tears now streaming down my face. I would often wake up in tears, I never considered that crying though. It was really raining hard then, thunder and lightning illuminating the sky. I looked around to see if anyone was watching, and then dried my eyes. Both the clock and the color of the sky indicated that it was now the evening. This meant that my mother had not shown up at all. She had always come on the first of September. Had she forgotten about me? Had she decided that I was no longer worth her time? I knew of my inadequacy, I had hoped that she would just not catch on. I decided, in the end, that she was probably going to come the next day or the next. Deep down, though, I knew that was not true.

When I was nine I had asked her a very specific question. It was not in my nature to ask specific questions, especially to my mother, but it was something that I had been wondering about ever since we had first met. “What happened to daddy?” To me, it was a very simple and obvious question. My mother, on the other hand, seemed to think differently about it. She had paused for a very long time; it was a very awkward pause. Finally she answered. “He died. He died in a car crash.” That was all she had ever said about my father’s death. It was the first and last time that she even alluded to the fact that he did die. I always found that interesting.

I do not think that I was an accident. Most kids I ran into would tell me that they were accidents, that their parents had just not wanted children and that is why they were put up for adoption. But I do not think that that is what happened to me. No, I think it was more complex than that. I think that I reminded my mother of things, things that had passed. I think that she could not handle remembering those things. I could have had a splendid life. I could have lived in a house, in a neighborhood, in a community. I could have lived exactly as one is supposed to. Mistakes. Consequences. I was not supposed to have that life, but I did. I knew that I was supposed to be happy. And I knew that for some reason I was not.

She did not come the next day or the next. In fact it was several weeks before any news at all came about my mother. Then one day a man knocked on our door. He was tall, he was lean and he was sad. I could see in his eyes that he was sad, I had a knack for seeing emptiness inside. He held with him a torn envelope inside of which was a very formal letter. The letter contained a short paragraph and a signature at the bottom, which was very elaborate: for these reasons, I knew it to be formal. He approached me and I shied away as I did to most strangers. He was different, though, he seemed to know me. I was not sure why, but he looked at me as my mother did when we first met. “You’re mother passed away two weeks ago Charles. She was driving, driving to see you. She ran into a storm and… and…” I looked upon the man with growing intensity, even though I knew what would follow.

Aside from my mother, I never had a single person to talk to. Once in a while I would have a friendly conversation with one of the children living in my home, but it was never anything meaningful. I lacked family and companionship. Above all, though, I lacked love, the key ingredient to happiness. There was not a single person who loved me. Even my mother did not love me, I always knew that the only reason she would come and see me was out of guilt. I did not care though; she at least brought some meaning to my life, some connection- however slight. I lived a lonely life, that is, if you call my existence on this Earth living.

“I am your father Charles.” She had lied. The only person who ever brought any meaning to my life had lied to me. This man was my father. “I’m very sorry. I have to get going, goodbye Charles.” The man who was my father walked in and out of my life in no less than ten minutes time. I was completely alone, completely empty inside. There was nothing. I was nothing. I could have fallen, fallen and fallen, and no one would ever have noticed or cared. So I did just that, I fell.

A guy