Learning to say Goodbye

Part one ; Memories

Life teaches us a lot of things. Be it how to walk, how to speak, how to survive in general or even how to take the right choices. But there are situations, for which we were never prepared for.

My life has never been all that bright but I've always tried to look at it from the best side. Like the time I lost my mother and my father became abusive over me and my older brother. Or when my brother just left our home to go to Europe to become a teacher. I'm sure he never wanted to hurt me but with him being gone, dad took out all his anger and sadness on me. Beating me nearly to death all few months. I remember one time, it happened about three months after my brother left. Dad had once again gone drinking and came home completely drunk. As soon as he opened the door I knew that today wouldn't end pretty. And damn was I right.

It was a cold December evening. A giant snowstorm was making its way over the country and just happened to be over Ontario at the moment. It was nothing new. Especially not in December. I had just gotten home from school, when I heard the front door slam. Usually I would have been home since 6:00pm, but today was different. We had gone on a road trip and I hadn't told anything to my father. "Jason come down here!" Normally I would have gone immediately downstairs, but not today.

I ran out of my room and up to the attic. I had just finished climbing the ladder when I heard dad making his way upstairs. I quikly fleed towards the nord side of the attic and hid myself behind some cartons filled with christmas decorations. "JASON! You can't hide from me and you know it." Father yelled from downstairs.

I couln't hear anything after that so I tried to look around the carton to see if my father was still there. But sudenly a hand grabd ahold of the colar of my red shirt. "I will tach you a lesson. nobody, NOBODY hides from me boy!" He yelled and draged me downstairs towards my room. The rest is a simple blurr. I remember the pain, beating, yelling and insulting, but I did not remember beeing outside.

As I slowly regained my consciousness I was in horrible pain. Next to the pain I also noticed that I was beeing dragged by the feet trough the forest. I was scared, endless scared. Somthing like that had never happend before. Of course I had ended in the forest a few times, but never because sombody dragged me there. It was always because I ran away from dad and tryed to hide.

The moon was already halfway down. Dawn wasn't fare anymore. Did I realy sleep that long? I don't know. I can't remember anything. And I'm not even able to focus on what was happening around me. "You know," My fathers voice boomed inside my head, "everything was fine when Damara was alive. We were happy but then she became pregnant a second time. We never planed on having a second child. Damara and I, we knew how dangerous it was for her to have children. We were lucky, that nothing happend while she was pregnant with your brother Miles. But she had to have you. After your birth she became ill. Not an illness which could have been cured. She died shortly later." My father stopped. We had just entered a clearing, surrounded by trees. "You killed her Jason and now you will pay the prize and assume the consequences." He let go of my legs and slowly tourned around.

As I tryed to focus on my father all I could perceive was a gun in his left hand. "And the only way to do so is with your life" ,he said befor raising the gun and pulling the trigger.

In moments like this it is said that ones life passes befor your eyes, but not for me. All I saw were memories when everything was still fine. When we were all happy. And I saw people I care for, Mom , Miles and Hope. Oh how I miss her. We met once in the forest. The day Miles left. And I remember everything, her smile, hair, eyes, just everything...