Fantasy Feelings

Childhood Trauma

I wake up to the faint sound of sobs coming from my sister. The hollow sounds that haunt the air of our broken home adds to the eeriness of my confusion. I look around, wondering where my mother is when I need her to hold me. Absent in my life because she is off on her own journey. Wondering where my dad is only to remember that he is in the hospital fighting his own losing battle. Soon it comes to me that I am not in my own home. With no one to watch us we lie awake in my grandmother's house, alone and unwanted we have invaded for 2 months now. I have forgotten the touch of my father's vacant hand,the one that used to hold mine in fear and in love, or the look of my shoebox apartment I'm told is my home. What I haven't realized at this point is that when we go home, I won't have much time left to remember my dad, because he is dying. Slowly deteriorating, I have to take care of him. Only 8 years old, I find myself parenting my own parents. I help him down into his chair because the stairs are now only something to stare at. I am the one to tie his shoes that don't tread anywhere anymore. Oblivious to it all, I thought this was normal. I thought that everyone had a mother living her separate life filled to the brim with separate demons; ones that spell out mental illness and suicidal tendencies. I thought everyone had an absent minded father who while paid the bills and bought the food, did nothing else but sit in a chair and sleep. The norm of my life was adulting to survive, cooking meals and cleaning the house, and helping my dad with the mundane events life has to bring. Now, I realize my childhood was stolen and replaced with stress and a feeling of misplacement. Most of my life was spent in someone else's home, with other people's parents, because mine were too sick to be here, for us.