Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Healing the Deepest Wounds ❯ The One and Only ( Chapter 1 )

-Healing the Deepest Wounds-

 

*Disclaimer: This is my story. All characters in it are real people. This original piece was written by me and I spent a great deal of my time trying to tell it. Please respect that.

 

My father was a great man. But to my misfortune, I only knew him for the first eleven years of my life. He was the kind of dad that brought home surprises after work, who couldn't stand to see you cry, and he was the kind of dad that gave you wet kisses. Those are the things I remember most about him.

 

I picked favorites. My dad was the best, my mom and I never got along. When my little brother was born, my mom took Jesse and my dad took me. Jesse was born with mental and physical disabilities. Without my dad I never would have gotten any attention; without my dad I would have turned into a homicidal maniac by now.

 

He worked harder than he should have; he wore his body down with stress and physical labor. He loved coffee and the satisfaction of finishing a job. He built the house I now live in and hope will one day be mine. He never did a “half- ass job” and was always on his feet. He loved me so much; it hurts me now to think of just how much he cared about my well being. He spoiled me with candy and childish make- up, dolls, stuffed animals and trips to the mall.

 

I remember having conversations with him even when I was seven years old about college. I told him I didn't want to go. He said I could do whatever I wanted. He said maybe I'll change my mind by the time I turn eighteen. I reassured him that I wouldn't. It's amazing how time changes everything.

 

Of course, due to being sheltered most of my life, I was one of those, “You don't know what you have until you lose it” kind of people. I never expected anything to ever hurt me as long as daddy was there to protect me; I believed in him and put most of my faith in him, as well.

 

You can't depend too much on other people before they run out of what you're depending on. I was depending on him more than I ever realized; his life, his company, his advice all supported me--provided a sort of net for me to always fall back into.

 

He loved to smoke cigarettes. The doctors all said he had huge lungs but that didn't prevent him from developing lung cancer at the age of fifty. He broke the news to me in the kitchen; I took it amazingly well. Perhaps because I had no idea what cancer was; if I knew as much as I know about it now, I would have been livid.

 

He sat me down and looked me in the eye. He simply said, “I have lung cancer.”

 

I stared right back at him. I didn't know what to say, “Okay.”

 

Time goes by so fast. It amazes me. Whenever it hurts to even breathe, time moves the slowest. When all you want is to be happy again, the clock moves slower than ever. . .

 

It was just another night at home . . . until Dad started coughing. He couldn't stop coughing. It scared me to death. I remember asking my mom, “Is Dad going to die?”

 

She looked at me with this look in her eyes I had never seen before. She didn't know what to tell me. That was the beginning of it; the fight for his life. It never struck me until I saw him in the hospital the next day with his head pointed up like a turkey out in the rain. I remember leaning my head against the bed and crying, begging to God for his life.

 

He made a grand total of three trips to the hospital. He lost fifty pounds in a matter of two months. My dad got a G- tube (so he could be fed strait through the stomach). However, it kept leaking—stomach acid burned his skin—so he went through even more pain. His hair thinned. My mom gave him sponge baths because he could no longer stand on his own, nor could he use the bathroom by himself. I watched him waste away on a hard, white bed; he was no longer the man I knew and loved. I couldn't describe how hard it was to watch him sit there, day in and day out, in front of the television watching game shows.

 

The hospital room reeked of Lysol. It was painted eggshell white and the curtains were drawn so minimal light could get through the slats. The bathroom was to my immediate right. I remember walking to the room for the first time; I remember every step, every turn, and every friendly face. When I walked into his room, my dad was just laying there—unaware of everything.

 

After four months of radiation and treatment, I was laying on the couch in front of the television watching late night TV with my mom and dad. The night was beautiful, like glitter on black fabric, the moon a bright orb in the sky illuminating the water in the lake. I was drifting off to sleep when my dad suggested I turn- in for the night. I reluctantly agreed and said my “I love yous” and “good nights” I headed for the stairs.

 

I never knew that would be the last time I saw him. I awoke to my mother's voice, “Jaime… Jaime, Dad is dead,”

 

That got my attention, “You're kidding, right?” I knew she wasn't, even before I asked; I was grasping at straws.

 

Only later would she tell me that my dad had given up on life. He didn't believe he would get better—so he didn't. He had no desire to move forward. He cried when he saw me. He cried for us—my brother and me—he knew he would never see us succeed later on in life. He knew he was going to die.

 

My mom left me alone with my thoughts for awhile. I got out of my bed and shuffled around for some pants, the whole time, crying hysterically; I couldn't see anything because my tears were so thick forming rivulets down my cheeks.

 

The day was bright and sunny. I had always imagined and seen in movies that when someone died it was dark and dreary outside. The sun shone despite our sorrow and mocked our loss. My loss.

 

I made my way down the stairs, going through the motions, not really there; I was far away in my mind. I was screaming inside a cell that was gray and cold. The cool cement floor came up through my shoes and penetrated my body, the steel bars surrounding all four sides trapped me, and so I could never escape. I could feel myself grope at whatever there was outside the cell; that was hidden from my eyes, blurry with tears.

 

My heart ached; my chest pounded. My throat was dry and it felt I was suffocating on air, my nose was plugged and every few minutes I would sniff in a futile attempt to clear it.

 

The hair in a pony- tail at the nape of my neck was an untidy mess, my eyes were undoubtedly dull and tired; I knew I looked like holy hell but I didn't care, not one bit, not even a little.

 

My family was all huddled in the kitchen around the island in the middle of the room. I sat myself down in one of the chairs surrounding it and stared at the green and white freckled counter, and every once in a while I would glance up at a nearby relative, seeing them, but looking strait through to the opposite wall. I felt obligated to sit there and listen to their idle conversation about my father; I didn't want to, I wanted to roll up into a ball and hide from all the evils of the world. I wanted to die; I wanted to grab a steak knife from the drawer a few feet away from my grasp and kill myself and join my father in death.

 

But that would have been too easy…

 

I was too much of a coward to take my own life anyways. Now that I'm nearly sixteen, I'm glad I didn't.

 

My memory of that day is somewhat vague; some parts I remember as clear as day, and others are blurry and glazed over with the passage of time.

 

Some time after the conversations in the kitchen I was heading up to my room for some unknown reason to me now, and I met my aunt, Diane, at the top of the stairwell.

 

She said, “Jaime, I'm so sorry about your dad,” looking me strait in the eye. I could see she was in pain as well as I was; but not as much as I was in, it felt like no one could be in as much pain as me, I had never encountered despair as painful as this.

 

I nodded in reply and added some petty words in thanks of her sympathy. I looked down at Nathan crawling on the floor; he couldn't have been older than a year. I remember thinking, he's so young, and he has his whole life in front of him. I was looking for someone to blame; I didn't care who it was, I needed to blame someone or something. I felt Nathan had been given a life in exchange for my father's. In the back of my mind I never believed this, that's just what I told myself; it was my way of attempting to justify his death.

 

I think that was when I stopped believing in God. My belief in him had always been shaky but as I saw my life being torn apart so easily in front of my eyes I had truly given up in Him. I remember praying to Him when I wanted something really badly, but my prayers were never really answered; I guess because they were always for toys and material belongings or wishes for a phenomenon to occur; nothing realistic, nothing that should have been answered. If life is so great after you die, there's nothing to really live for.

 

The five days after that were filled with tears and raw emotion. Too much raw emotion, if you ask me. The feeling was that someone had waxed away my outer layer, leaving me exposed and vulnerable for the proverbial vultures to pick at.

 

I told my best friend two days after he died that he was gone.

 

She said in a pathetic tone, “Oh, no… That must be so hard for you.” She never said she was sorry he died, I'm glad she didn't. I had received more pathos than I could handle from everyone else; I didn't need it from her.

 

Nicole invited me to the lake to swim and I gratefully took the invitation; I wanted to get out of the house, I needed to get away from the thoughts locked inside of me. I was grateful for the distraction it provided me with.

 

Nicole helped me heal in her own way; she never talked about it. She treated me as if nothing had happened; like I hadn't changed. I didn't need to talk about it; I had my family to support me with my feelings and questions.

 

The night before his funeral I remember my mom had bought a CD to play for the next day. We brought out old pictures as the sun was setting. I remember listening to the Marshall Tucker Band play in the background as light filtered through the front window. That was the final straw; scrimmaging through all our memories laid out on a few glossy sheets of picture paper and listening to songs that hit so close to home totally ruined me. It took the rug out from underneath me, causing me to fly backwards and left me in shambles on the floor. I broke down, tears streaming down my face letting them fall on the pictures that lay on the floor spread out on the carpet before me. I felt caught in the twilight before the sun sets, when it dangles over the horizon and then finally dipping below, leaving stars and black velvet in its wake. When my mom came back from feeding the horses she never knew; I never told her that I had cried like the little girl I was, the tears were too close, threatening to spill over the brims of my eyes.

 

The day of his funeral I wore a long, black skirt and a red shirt decorated with a paisley design. I had my hair back and wore two simple bracelets around my right wrist; I was fairly pleased with the way I appeared, considering the remains of my tattered life I struggled to keep in my hands.

 

My grandmother, whom I refer to as Nanny, arrived before everyone else and only stayed for a short time. She had always managed to confuse me in the way she thought. She was a strong believer in the bible and God and never failed to ask if my mother was angry with her. She had always been paranoid, for as long as I can remember; always afraid someone would strip her of her money and take off, leaving her with nothing. I showed her my room and we sat on my unmade bed and stared out the window at the lake. We discussed memories of my father; she talked of his childhood and I shared his life as an adult.

 

My dreary afternoon had arrived. The sun was hidden behind grey clouds that threatened to rain. There was wind shifting through the trees and moved the grass on our front lawn. She claimed she needed to leave before the traffic got to bad and left before the first guest had even arrived. I was appalled that she didn't even stay for her own son's funeral.

 

The priest arrived about the same time as the rest of our family members, and kept my mother busy by asking her questions about my dad. While she was showing him photographs that weren't on poster board, I wandered through the house, talking every once in a while to a passing relative. I paced the house about fifty times that day, going back and forth, within minutes going from the back door to the front. I was anxious for all the people to get out of my house, to leave me alone to lick my wounds.

 

The ceremony began with the priest shedding light on the bible; some load about a sheep getting lost. My father had never really told me he believed in the bible or God for that matter. I was crying, none the less, I wasn't even listening to the priest. I was paying more attention to the ground under my feet and listening to my thoughts, he's gone, he's dead, he's never coming back, kept running through my mind faster and faster with no avail.

 

This priest knew nothing about my father; it felt strange for him to be speaking of him. My mother and my cousin, Jennifer, read letters addressed to my father aloud that they had written. I was speechless with Jen's letter, it was beautiful. I was extremely grateful to her for revealing her feelings for everyone to see. Afterwards, we shared old memories of dad and I went through a dozen or so tissues.

 

My grandmother—my mom's mom—talked about how when I was a baby, my dad came home from work and sat down with me on his lap and read the mail to me. I smiled for the first time when my dad came home from work.

 

Luke talked about a time when we were all out in our boat. My dad let him drive, at the time Luke was only eleven, and he remembered turning the boat so hard that we almost flipped over. Everyone else was screaming and holding on for deal life, everyone but my dad. He was laughing.

 

I wanted to add something. Anything. But I was crying so hard I could barely breathe.

 

When no one else had anything to say, we made our way outside to the lake. My mom sprinkled a handful of his ashes into the clear water. She kissed the grains before they fell through her fingers. The sky was darker than before and erupted in thunder every few moments. The weather matched my grim mood.

 

The day was nearly over. We took a few family pictures; staged photographs with fake smiles, attempting to look happy. A load of crap; if anything, I never wanted to remember that day. All I needed to know was that he was remembered and missed and we all had said good- bye in our own ways.

 

Everyone left between the hours of seven and nine. I was relieved; it felt as though I could finally breathe.

 

The remainder of the summer quickly went by and I started the sixth grade. Life goes on, no matter how much you wish it didn't. I have learned so much from the experience. Never take anything for granted, for one, and when someone encounters a huge loss, they are forced to mature, this one took me a bit longer to realize. I'm still learning things to this day about myself from my daddy's leaving this world.

 

Even though I wish I could have known my father better, his death actually motivated me to succeed. I was a stupid kid, I probably ran into walls when I was a baby. I had no common sense and I never tried. I didn't care at all, whether it was school or cleaning the house, I simply didn't care. But after his death, something changed in my whole outlook on life. I started trying to do well in school (but cleaning the house is still a little hard to get motivated to do). I got the reputation of being a “the smart one.” I turned quiet though. I didn't socialize very much. I felt completely alone and didn't see the need to talk unless I had to. Dad's death certainly impacted everything; even the layout of our home is different than it was back then.

 

With every day that passes, I remember less and less of what happened. I don't remember as vividly as I used to. The only way to remember everything is to write it all down. So I can remember what I went through. Remember everything he taught me. Remember my dad—to honor him.

 

I'm writing this to appease my own pain of his passing. I'm writing this for me and no one else; not a lame school assignment or for my expectant mother. That might sound selfish to you, but I'm doing this to get over it. I am hoping that laying my feelings down on paper will somehow help and make it easier to bear. Every day I think about him and each day that moment grows smaller and smaller; I'm finally healing.

 

Sincerely,

Gary B*s Daughter,

Jaime B*

 

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