Chapter 1
“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.” ~Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
“Mommy, mommy!” Screamed a little girl, whose hair was golden blond.
This little girl had the brightest, clearest blue eyes ever seen. The only flaw was the fresh, clear tear running down her young peaceful face. This petite child was sitting in a corner of a nursery. This nursery that looked as if it was for a newborn baby boy. There was an old wooden crib, a playpen in the middle of the floor, a dark blue paint covered all the walls, and a golden rug that laid on the wooden floor.
At first glance, this little girl looked as if she was just wanting her mother, until the crisp clean fresh air in the room begins to thicken into a dark black fog. Soon a glow of deep orange and red light the doorway; slowly, small flames enter into the room. Seconds later flames engulfed the small
nursery. The little girl did not know what to do, so she kept screaming 'mommy, Mommy, MOMMY.' As the time ticked by, the screaming cries slowly died into a soft wimpier....
Minutes lat
er, sirens were heard throughout the small secluded town. With the sirens still blaring as they got to their destination, everyone all stopped in their tracks.
Where there once was a home was now no more,
there stood a charred house.
While most the firefighter stood still, hundreds of people also came to see what all the commotion was about. They saw the house and wondered what had happened. Who had lived there? Was anyone hurt? Soon, everyone stood still. Their questions were answered when they watched a
tall fireman carry out a small child with golden hair.
After finishing the book, I closed the pitch black, worn, leather book cover. Tears slowly, yet steadily, slide down my pale cheeks dripping onto my freckled white chest. The tears were not only for that poor girl who died, but for myself. I know what it feels like to be alone, to have no there to take care of you. If only that little girl had her parents, she would still be alive. But no, her parents had to be away from home, they left her all by herself, that should have NEVER happened. Life is never fair, it never is.
Minutes ticked by as I sat underneath a tall oak tree. I kept thinking about how the life of this girl could have changed if the parents actually cared. I thought of how my life could have been changed if I had parents that loved me. If my parents did love me, I wouldn't be alone. I would have a caring mother and a strong father, and maybe even a brother or sister. Maybe I would be living in a huge white house with a picket fence lining the bright green grass from the neighbors brown, withered grass. I would have a place that I could call home. A place that I could love and a place that I could be loved in.
But as we all know, life is a cruel thing. I have to live in the foster home with all the other kids whose parents left them for dead. I have to live in the place where all the forgotten children come to live their childhood alone, hidden from the rest of the waiting world. We are nobody. Few people have the balls to come by us, only the people that want a child, the wannabe parents. No one can ever replace your birth parents, no one.
“Ava Moore, will you please get butt in here?! You're going to freeze to death out there. Come inside!” Nancy yelled.
“Ugh, alright,” I whispered back.
Nancy was not the stereotypical foster home mother; she was amazing. She was the person who took care of the children who were living at the foster home. She was like a mother to all of the children. She was the mother I never had, well the closest thing I will ever get to a mother.
