Sea

When I was a child, my father was the only person who knew anything about seas and waters. He always said that if I would ask him something then he’d tell me. He had an understanding of everything about it that I didn't even know existed. I wanted to be able to go outside and have fun but I knew there was no way I could do that over the sea, so I had to learn how to swim. It felt good because I had to do something new just like when I went to school.

I made it down the ladder at five o'clock in the afternoon. On it there were two boats and a lot of people on them too, but all apart they weren’t that many. That was when I saw something different. All of those people inside did the same thing all of a sudden and ran back into their houses while everyone else got off the boat. They didn't even look at each other to get a sense of what the problem was. That is how much we can change things from here on out. It really changes you because once you start making changes to your life it will not stop changing and you may find yourself doing more. There were some women standing there looking around trying to determine what had happened. It wasn't easy. Those young girls would never know what had happened or where it came from. It's been such a long time since I've heard from any of my sisters or brothers but now they are gone. My mother will never see them again but she can still feel them. That was a few years ago. This incident was more than ten years ago. The worst part about being close to a woman is making sure she knows her place in society. Being a black girl I was thrown in between that and a white girl and not knowing anything about either side was hard for me to survive. You must be ready to be told no. And after the first night they told me to stay put in the bathroom. But I wouldn’t give up. I don’t remember when they told me I couldn’t go home. I can still hear my voice even now. Then they said I’m not allowed to leave the house without permission. Again, that just made me angry as fuck. My mother was always the most responsible one in our family so having her say I couldn’t leave the house without permission was pretty bad. But I was stubborn and kept pushing through it. At this point I became so bitter because they didn't want me to leave because they wanted her to remain at the top. It got to a point where I got fed up with that whole situation and we had to start walking up and down the highway, which was quite a task. That was after my mother passed away. We started driving. No one stopped us. When we stopped to cross the road, I began to cry. Even the driver was scared to walk past me. Not from fear. Not because he knew I had cancer or something similar. If I would have screamed for him to look at me then he wouldn't have been scared to look at me, it was so obvious that something bad was happening, but it seemed he feared me. We didn't know anything about the disease. Even I was scared. It made me mad because of him. I was a little kid, so I tried to keep my head held high, yet as soon as he passed me all of a sudden I saw my daughter’s face drop below the wheels of the car. She hit the floor before I could scream. It was quite the shock. Almost like it was a dream or like I was seeing a ghost. It gave me enough courage to hit the gas and drive faster. My mom’s death did so much damage to my life. Everything I knew about relationships I learned to trust for the first time, but I also learned a lesson I never knew, that taught me not to lose sight of the beauty within that is our mother. She loved us a lot but she did not have time for all of us. Her soul is already gone, so she made sure she was taken care of properly when she died. So whenever I think of doing something, I make sure I go to church or talk with someone who has gone to church with me, because in times of grief like this, only God can help.

If you try to follow directions the man of God will guide you. Sometimes you may need to take turns but what if you fall asleep on the side? When I lost my mother, I never thought I would never get another chance. I started taking classes. I took courses in psychology, business and engineering. I became great friends with many people, even women. A lot of them will be the last ones to die. I have met several amazing men from church. Most of the time they didn't seem interested in knowing anything about me. But then I told them. Then some began to make comments. Some of them stopped talking, because they didn't know me and I left their company. Others started to notice that I am very intelligent and have had many experiences that I haven't shared with anyone yet. They didn't know who I am but I told them anyway. Some told me stories. One I never forget. Because it was a story of a dark day that led me to join that choir. As I began singing in front of the entire congregation and then my song "Ave Maria" came on the microphone, I knew I couldn't let them down. I stood up and sang, but the next thing I knew I couldn't breathe. My brain fog came on and I choked. My eyes rolled back of their own. What do you expect for a choir concert? Just tears. But it happened all too quickly. Someone got hit over the head and I fell to the ground and screamed. My throat was swollen up almost completely. That was the end of the world for me, when I finally opened my eyes. For myself. I did know that if I had kept coming out of the hospital that day with all the injuries that I sustained I wouldn't be living today. Now I had to live with those injuries and now my mind didn't know what to do with it anymore. That wasn't an option that some people were willing to take. In hindsight, I can see now that I was the reason. Something needed to happen to get that whole mess cleared up. For a long time I tried not to hate anybody including myself. I tried not to hurt those around me. I tried to stay positive and not to judge others as I had done years before. Then I saw my best friend for the first time in years. With tears streaming down my face I asked him, ‘What happens to someone like you?’ His answer was a lie. He couldn’t believe the same thing could happen to his girlfriend. After that moment, it became clear that a part of me was gone. She was mine. Who knows how long I'll be out like that, but I know I'm not getting the message. That part of me that I had been missing came back. Until this day I still am. I know that was part of the plan. Part of me I had lost but that part of me isn't going to come back again.

That part of me will never return. It was supposed to go away. When she dies, she leaves a piece of herself behind. She is me. I am the way that she had seen herself. To this day, the pain from realizing that is still in my veins.

The sun sets every four months. Like a pair of glasses I wear my mother is shining brightly behind the window. Once I wake up this time I become incredibly cold. Inside of me it hurts.

We use a small pool just off the coast. When I was born, my mother always loved to kick around around on the sand. That would make me scream. And I hated seeing her hurt her knees. She always reminded me to play with the toes on the bottom. I had to hold onto a rock the size of a tree to avoid hitting the ground andthat caused many bruises on both legs. I guess it was because sand would slip easily down the bottom instead of the ground. I was always the sort of kid that cried because when you're playing on the beach, and you get sand on your hands and knees on wet sand, all you wanted was a hand and you didn't want to look at anyone else. Except my mother knew that by kicking all around was bad. When I was seven, I ran to mom and told her that Dad would slap me. Mom was in tears. She grabbed me and I could just hear my mother crying. "You do what you like and you do what I want." So I ran to my room and started throwing the pillows from my bed until my mother was forced to stop crying.

It wasn't long before I realized I was failing at becoming a real father figure for my son. That I was creating a void by forcing him to grow up without me. My mother always told him that it was what she did. She brought my brother and me into the family even though he was only three. She had never told me that I wasn’t good enough but she didn't listen. My mother doesn't know that even now I am his mother.

I don't know exactly when I started feeling this way about myself. It is hard to believe, because as I matured more and more I found that one part of me had disappeared. How many times did I tell myself to stop telling myself that this couldn't happen to me because it had been that way for years