| Sometimes the person you want most is the one you'll be better without |
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The thing you need to remember is that this isn't a happy story. It doesn't have a happy beginning, or a happy middle, and there's no such thing as a happy ending here. Happy doesn't exist in the story being told, and it never will.
I expected love to be happy, to sweep me off my feet and to fall head over heels for the perfect guy. Once upon a time, I wanted what every girl wants, a happy husband, a family, maybe a dog or two. I wanted what my parents had; unconditional love for each other and those they surrounded themselves with.
My parents were everything to me. My mom was my best friend and my dad was my protector. They taught me everything I knew, or thought I knew, about love.
'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge it will pass away.'
My parents had that bible passage hanging above their bed, a constant reminder of how they wished to love, and for us to love others. They lived true to that passage until the day they died. It wasn't uncommon for the house to be filled with my brother's friends in the mornings when I got up for school. I'd find them sleeping on the couch or on the floor. Some mornings I'd wake up and my younger brother would be curled up in my bed because he'd been kicked out by my twin brother's best friend.
My parents never turned them away. My mother would patch them up after a rumble and my dad would teach them how to play football during holidays. There was never a dull moment in our house.
When they died, so did a part of all of us. My eldest brother dropped out of school and got a job. He was now the sole guardian of three kids who couldn't help themselves. He was set to go to college on a football scholarship. He now carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and the light in his eyes is gone. He's hardened now, not the soft teddy bear of a brother I grew up knowing. My twin, well he lost the only champions he'd ever known. He's always doubted himself with everything. He never felt smart enough or good enough. He dropped out shortly after our parents died. He works at the DX now with his best friend, but even he has lost the bubbly and bright personality he once had. My youngest brother, well he lost the most. He lost his mom and his dad, just when he needed them most. Our dad was his idol, he looked up to him in every way, shape, and form. Our mother was his rock. She was the one he went to about everything. They'd share their dreams, read together, and watch the sunrise together. He lost a part of himself when they died.
As for me, well I lost my brothers along with my parents. Gone was the carefree, loving household we were raised in. Both my older brothers were out working their poor lives away, while my youngest didn't care if he lived to see fifteen. I became a mother to three boys; one who constantly has his head up in the clouds, one who'll work himself into an early grave, and one who can't see the best in himself.
In becoming a mother to my brothers, I also became a mother to their friends. I spend countless hours at the kitchen table helping with homework and lecturing them on how wrong it is to shoplift. I counsel them when they have problems with their girls and I patch them up after rumbles with other gangs.
I didn't want to become a mother at sixteen, to seven boys who felt that the world was against them. I wanted to make something of myself, to do something with my life. I wanted to get out of Tulsa, move to the country, and live a life away from the social divide of this town. None of that is possible, not with the weight that I carry on my shoulders.
Maybe my life could have been different, maybe I could have had that life I wanted, and maybe I did get that for a brief period of time. When I was with him, I felt that it was possible. He made me feel like I could do anything I wanted. He would build me up so high, sing my praise, and tell me I was something more than what I am. With those moments, came the bad. He broke me down when he drank, and yelled in my face that I was dirty, that I had no home training. I gave it right back to him.
I told him that he was a brat who got everything handed to him on a silver platter. He didn't know the meaning of the word 'no' and he never would. He was an only child, he got everything he ever wanted, and for five short months, that included me.
I let him have everything. I gave him every little bit of my heart, and he held it tightly in his hands until the very last moment he lived. I always knew that we wouldn't last, that something had to give. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the earth to give out from under my feet.
Looking back now, I realize that love, our love, wasn't something to be proud of. We were anything but happy, anything but perfect. Our love was not patient and it was far from kind. We were far from kind. He hated my family, and I hated his friends. There was not a day that we didn't remind each other of it either.
In him holding onto my heart so tight, I didn't see or feel it shattering up until our very last night. It wasn't until I held his cold and wet body against my chest that I felt my heart completely shatter. I didn't realize how tight a grip he kept on me and the facade that we'd built. I wanted something real, he couldn't give that to me. I never minded it, not really. I was content with him until the very end.
You asked me to write about something that is important to me. Bob Sheldon was the most important part of my life for a short while, but in the short time we were together, I felt like we'd lived a whole lifetime together. We both wanted a life away from Tulsa, but he couldn't give it up. He loved the fighting, the drinking, and the divide between the social classes. I just loved him.
How did it end? Well, that's the question on everyone's mind, but to get to the end, you first have to read the beginning, and we began December 12, 1966.
