• When a call changed everything.

    The days went by and still no call from mother. Weeks went by when I finally grew worried. Why you ask so late? Mother always left unexpectedly and didn’t come back for weeks at a time. Finally a call came but not what I have expected...the police. I have thought my mother has gotten arrested and needed me to bail her out, again. But to remember I was only 11.But it was the M.E’s office. They said my mother has been murdered. At first I thought all was a lie, a prank, a cruel sick joke. Until they told me they were serious and explained it all, not a word held back. My heart was broken, shattered into a million pieces. I was only a child when my dad abandoned us. Now I have no mom and my dad doesn’t even want me in his life.

    BEFORE THE CALL:
    I have always been the ‘mom' in our family. Always making sure mother came home safe and sober. Every time she left I did the house chores. Like the laundry and food while mother wasted her time and money on even more alcohol. My mom started to be a drunk when dad decided to suddenly ‘move’ away. With all the money he took mother is making it worse with all the booze she is buying. Every time I saw mom drinking one, two bottles a day I saw her destroying herself with the beer, wine, vodka, anything she can get her hands on. Even if it meant to steal. Just 2 weeks I heard her mumble drunk saying she'll be back in couple of hours. But I knew a couple of hours meant a couple of days. I have told her to come sober. But when she came tipsy and said she has not been drinking I never believed her. I can smell the alcohol in her breath. And I had tried to stop her from making yet another mistake but mother smacks me across my face stopping me the instant her hand left my face. She would always tell me the same thing when I tried to stop her "Lemme alone, You’re the reason this alcohol is in my veins! If you hadn’t been born my man would still be here an we would’ve been happy, you, you home wrecker!" Those words, I’ve heard so many times still shatter me with the same intensity as it did the first time she had told me.

    THE REGRET:
    The week before she was killed I had regretted something bitterly. I regretted that one week before she was killed I had yelled and screamed at her. I said she was just a bitter old drunk that her life revolves all around her alcohol and the bar. That was when she got pissed and left me in the house with $200 in cash but all she said is “Here’s some cash for food and don’t waste it” and left through the back door, slamming it behind her. After that both of us were never the same. She never talked to me, and I didn’t either. It had stayed that way right up until the week before she was taken from this world. She had just been partying up until the crack of dawn when she arrived. We had a routine. Every time she went to party, right after she had just left I would leave the door unlatched, and put some aspirin out for her when her hangover kicks in.

    MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS:
    The thought of my mom, the woman who gave birth to me, the woman who actually loved me for at least the first few years of my life, was now gone. No, not gone she has been gone before, she was murdered. And I knew that somewhere in me I had to find out who this life-taker is. But I had no clue on where to start. Then reality struck. I was just a ‘home-wrecking’ kid who had no idea what to do. She was just was a parentless kid with no one to take her in. However, I knew who come to get me. Not my dad nor my grandma or grandpa. No, Social Services. The ‘takers-of-kids-lives’, mother would say. She has been visited by them back when I was 7, and again when I was 10. They always demanded to see me but her excuse was the same, “No child lives here. No, her daddy took her away, as you can see”. But she hid me in bathroom and when they wanted to go in she would say her boyfriend was in there and that it may take awhile. Once I was kept in there for nearly 3 hours ‘till Social Services decided to leave. Why didn’t my mom want to make me go with social services, that I would never get the chance to know.

    To be continued...