Pain's Prisoner

We all have a sad story to tell. Something that someone did to us, said to us. Maybe it was something we did to ourselves. We sit in the corner of a dark room filled with smoke and liquid poison and try to drown away our agony. Does it help? How can I, as a person, take every bad memory and stuff it into a metaphorical box and hide it away from myself? The reality is you cant. You can not escape what has happened to you because it has now made you who you are. You can not get rid of your pain without essentially demolishing YOU. So you take what you have, use it and alter it into something that you can live with. Find you "silver lining" they say. How can you be this depressed when you have so many great things to live for? My story is mine and mine alone. If I want to wallow in self-pity and immobilize myself until I can't recognize my reflection, is that not my right?

I was 7 years old when my mom died. Does the word "mom" have to be earned? If it does, then she failed miserably. She had me when she was 18. Six months later, she took me, left my dad and ran off with someone she barely knew, and then six months after that, they were married. He got her hooked on anything they could smoke, snort, or shoot up. And for the next 7 years, I watched her slowly kill herself. I was only four years old the first time she apologized to me, and sadly, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was Christmas morning and she was crying in the middle of the living room. I walked in and sat down on the couch next to her. She looked at me and said "If I had a nickel for every mistake I have ever made, I would be rich." That, followed by the "I'm Sorry" would became famous over the years to come. But hey, it wasn't all bad. Lack of parental control provided my baby sister and I with some wild adventures in our early years. Did I not mention her? Trust me, we will get there.

Fast-forward to my mom's death. It's New Years Eve, 2005, and she MUST go to a party. Any party! My stepdad, surprisingly, decided he wasn't in the mood to join my mom on her escapade, nevertheless, she was going. He eventually gave in and agreed to drive her, but their car broke down. It's New Years, sometime between midnight and 2:00 AM, it's a dark Louisiana back road in the middle of nowhere, but they're only about a mile away from the party. My mom insists on walking. For whatever reason, and I will never quite know why, Bryan, my stepdad, does not stop her. His claim was that he let her walk the rest of the way while he attempted to put the spare tire on the car and get it back to his mom's house. She never made it to the party. My mom was hit by a drunk driver and was pronounced dead at 2:04 AM. Who was this drunk driver and what happened to him, you ask? He was the 18 year old son of the wealthiest family in town and absolutely nothing happened to him. He went on to have a life and a family, and he faced no consequences for what he did. The rich white boy gets a slap on the wrist, but what's new right?

To Be Continued: