EBONY & IVORY

09/24/2014

What's the difference between a journal and a diary?

I always thought the two were essentially the same, you know? They both are books. They both obtain the ability to be written in, and they both keep a record of something. I'm the type of the person who researches anything at any given moment. So, according to a quick google search: a journal is a book used to explore ideas that take shape, whereas a diary is a book used to record events as they happen.

But can't you do both in just a single book?

It's amusing because growing up I used to have what I thought was a diary. It wasn't until one day my mother came into my room and saw me writing in it.

”Are you doing your homework?" she asked.

"No Ma, I finished my homework already. I'm writing in my diary."

"A diary? Only girls write in their diary. You're a man, son."

My mother was quite rugged with me during my younger years. She always made sure my education was a priority. If I showed success within my academics, I was rewarded with the things I wanted. I always had the latest video game console, the most popular cellular device, and any piece of tech that I was interested in. Out of everything however, video games were all I needed.

At least that’s what I thought.

As I got older I realized that I needed the warmth of a mother’s love and the fierce, tough love from a father. But I guess my mother lost her maternal ways the day my father died.

My father passed away when I was five years old. I was quite young, so I do not hold many memories of him. I can only recall two distinct memories: him throwing up in a plastic bag due to his disease, and the feeling of his ice cold forehead brush against my lips from kissing him in his casket. These were not pleasant memories, of course. But I was too young to understand what was actually going on. My father passed away due to complications from HIV, which was a prevalent virus during his adult years. I wasn’t told the reason for his death until I was about ten years old. Whether or not it was too soon for that revealing, is arguable. But one thing is for certain:

I had no idea what HIV was, and I was eager to find out.

I knew that my mother took his death extremely hard. She was emotionally distraught for a number of years, and I wanted to understand her pain – the same pain that was absent from myself due to a youthful brain. I started gathering information from my family members and from, of course, the internet.

HIV is an acronym for human immunodeficiency virus.

Check.

HIV is transmitted between humans through the exchange of certain types of bodily fluids.

Check.

Bodily fluids include blood, semen, breast milk, and vaginal fluids. Not all body fluids can transmit HIV.

Gross, but check.

Remember, I was ten.

It can be sexually transmitted, unprotected intercourse being the most common.

If I were to say it was at that moment I realized the root of my mother’s affliction, I’d be lying. I had to google definitions for some of the words mentioned above first. Inevitably, at just ten years old, I was able to produce questions that would allow myself to empathize with my mother’s feelings:

Does she miss him?

Death is the permanent end of vital processes, which means there is no chance of a physical return for my father.

Does she have HIV?

Wait no, she’s not sick. She’s healthy.

But HIV symptoms can be dormant for years.

How did my father acquire HIV then?

Did someone transmit it to him?

Who transmitted it?

When did it happen?

Where?

How?

All these questions must of plagued my mother for years, and now they started to plague me. My ten year old self.

For my eleventh birthday, my mother asked me what gift I wanted. She was straightforward like that. I told her that I wanted to know the truth behind my father’s death. I knew she had answers to the questions I discovered a year back.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said after a long pause.

“If you keep bringing me home great grades, each year on your birthday I will answer one question pertaining to your father’s death. You have a right to know, but gradually because you are still a baby. My baby, that is.”

Her words broke me down in that moment. I started bawling. That was the most heartfelt she had been with me since the passing of my father. I was completely overwhelmed.

“Deal,” I said while wiping away tears.

“Good, now ask your question. But remember, you can only ask one question on each birthday. No exceptions. Understand?”

“Yes ma’am,” I replied.

I composed myself rather quickly for an eleven year old. Reflecting back on it now, I was quite mature for my age. I understood the uniqueness of the situation, and didn’t want to wait a whole year in suspense for asking a question I already knew the answer to.

I took a deep breath and asked my question.

“Who gave Dad HIV?” I asked firmly.

My mother smiled slightly. It was the type of smile that you give someone when you’re proud of them. She was proud of her bright son. Her little scholar. Her baby. But that smile slowly transformed into clenched lips. The same clenched lips my own lips made from a reaction to kissing my father six years prior.

“It wasn’t from me.” She said with a crack in her voice.

A week before my twelfth birthday my mother passed away due to complications from HIV. I’ve never seen a person deteriorate as rapidly in a year, like I did with my mother. I knew she was sick with HIV, the few memories that I had with my father confirmed that. However, I couldn’t accept it. I found myself with a new set of questions:

Why did she hide it?

Did she not want me to know the truth?

Will I ever find out the truth?

All these questions, but no answers.

—

My name is Alexander Stallard, and today is the twelve year anniversary of my mother’s passing. Everyone has a story, and the story you’ve read above has been recorded in my personal book eleven times.

The book I am writing in right now.

Every year.

On the same date.

The date my mother left this earth.

For eleven consecutive years, I’ve written the same words in my book. But today, that will change. There’s more to the story, and I haven’t found the strength to record all of it. But after today, I am ready.

Every great story has a beginning, so let’s start there.

My twelfth birthday was depressing, and if you didn’t have any context you’d probably think I was a spoiled brat. I was now an orphan. I’ve experienced the death of both my parents. For one of my parents, I was concerned with figuring out the “who, what, where, and when.” Now I was left trying to figure out the “why” for both of them.

It was some surreal shit honestly.

It felt like my life was a movie, or even a video game.

My birthday slowly approached its end and I made sure everything was ready for school the next day. If there were any last words or messages my mother would leave behind, it would be for me to finish school in its entirety. That meant a master’s degree at minimum. As I was beginning to lay down that night, my aunt approached me with a small black book in her hands. My aunt, from my mother’s side, was now my legal guardian.

“Your mother was a strong woman, Alex. You know that right?” she asked in a soft tone.

“Yes ma’am,” I replied.

I exploded into tears in that moment, mainly because those were the same words I remembered using when my mother and I made our “question” deal. I realized that she was gone, and I might never understand the truth behind my father’s death.

Let alone hers.

“She went through a lot in her life, and she concealed a ton from you. There’s no denying that. But she did it all with your best interests at heart,” she explained to me.

“If that’s the case, she would’ve have to told me everything while she was dying. She would’ve been the mother I needed!”

I was experiencing an array of emotion.

“She left this for you,” my aunt said while gently placing the book over my heart.

“All the answers to your questions… I’m sure will be in here."

She tucked me in and kissed me on my forehead. She headed for the bedroom door.

“Make sure you turn off the light when you’re done,” she said while giving me a reassuring smile.

“Oh and... remember the deal.”

As soon as she closed the door, I yanked open the book with intense urgency. A white pen flew out and across the room. I had no interest in the pen, I just needed to digest the contents of the book. I realized the book was damaged. Almost all the pages of the book were ripped out. I scrambled around on my bed searching for the missing pages, thinking that I must of accidentally pulled them out. My efforts were to no avail. The book was essentially empty, except for the couple of pages filled with writing.

I counted the pages and suddenly I understood.

There were twelve pages.

One page for each month… of the final year of her life.

I began the first page immediately. It was titled:

"LEVEL 1”

—

Today I reached Level 12. She began the page with a short story from her childhood:

“…when I was a little girl, I loved writing about my everyday experiences. It’s what shapes us into the people we are today. I kept a journal and everyday after I finished my schoolwork, I wrote in it. One day my mother came into my room to check up on me:

“Did you finish your schoolwork, dear?” She asked.

“Yes mom, I’m writing in my journal now,” I replied.

“A journal? You’re a young, pretty lady. What you have, my dear, is a diary.”

As I read that page, tears streamed down my face. But these tears were different from all the other tears I’ve shed. These tears made me whole.

People, in life, will have certain interpretations of events. How they determine their interpretation of an event is based off their experiences. My mother’s childhood story helped me understand that. It helped me understand the truth about my father’s death, which I uncovered in the previous levels.

It also helped me understand the type of person she was, and became.

She ended the page, and the book, with a short quote:

“Ebony & Ivory”

Would there have been more levels if she lived a bit longer?

Did she end it here on purpose?

Did she know she was going to die?

I’m twenty-four years old now, so it didn’t take me too long to decipher what she meant by the quote. It was the black book and the white pen she left for me. Black and white were always her favorite colors.

The quote made me feel nostalgic. It made me feel nostalgic not only because I remembered the ripped pages along with the pen flying across the room years ago, but because a character in my favorite video game wielded two pistols that he named "Ebony and Ivory." The game was called Devil May Cry. He used the guns to kill demons, ha.

I went to my gaming cabinet and pulled out the game. I opened the case and in there was a check for $20,000. Attached to the check was a small note that read:

“PlayStation 2.”

I found my old PlayStation box and opened it. In there was a small black book, similar to the one my aunt gave me on my twelfth birthday.

For once in my life I had hundreds of questions flow through my mind, and didn't care to know the answers.

It was my mother’s diary.

Her journal.