Invictus

II. Origins

If there was anywhere that this story of mine, and the story of how I came to be begins, it would have to be in the summer of 1987. Back then, I was nothing but a dreamer; the very idea of the unknown struck such an interest with me. I mean, the entire world at that point had been discovered, and there was nothing left to find anymore. And so, with the world already defined and labeled, I looked to the extremes. I remember as a child, I would sit outside my window during a thunderstorm, and observe the natural process of it; the eerie whine of the wind and how it sang its sad song, or the sudden jolts of lightning, like giant fireflies racing against each other high in the skies. If I'm honest, the unpredictability of it all intrigued me, to the point where it almost cost me my life. Hell, my father would always tell me that as a baby, we were trapped in the supermarket while a tornado roared above us. And amid all the chaos and the confusion, not once did I cry.

However, if there is anything that inspired me to be what I am today, it would have to be those countless nights I stared up into the night sky when I was a teenager. So many thoughts came through my head when looking above at them; how small and insignificant we are in the grand scheme of the universe, and yet how significant we are in our existence in the known regions of space. But most of all, I saw space as an opportunity. As the cliche says, it was the final frontier; It was also a place where anything and everything was possible. To me, it was a place where nothing mattered and everything mattered all at once; a world that defied everything we knew as Earthlings, and I ached for it. It was alien and unknown in every sense of the words, and I wanted to know more. 

As a kid, my parents would often find me pretending that I was up there, in space. I would often run around in the front yard chasing our dog in my astronaut costume, which was usually my dad's old military clothes. But he didn't care, he loved it. Being a pilot himself, as well as an Air Force veteran of the Vietnam War, he knew how I felt. He knew there was a passion there, like the one he had for aviation, and he encouraged it time and time again. 

My childhood wasn't completely ideal; My mom, who never smoked a cigarette a day in her life, was diagnosed with lung cancer when I was 10. Although she was small in size, she had a heart bigger than one could possibly comprehend; and it was because of this that she kept moving forward. She would often push herself beyond her capacity to make sure that I was alright, even with her condition deteriorating. Even as a child, I saw what she did, and it inspired me immensely; to push forward when the world continued to push you back. 

A year later, the cancer had spread to the point where it was no longer treatable, and my father and I found ourselves saying goodbye to her. But when she spoke to me, it wasn't to say goodbye; rather, she read me a poem in which she had said had inspired her to live the life that she had, which was:

Out of the night that covers me, black as the pit from pole to pole;

I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud;

and under the bludgeoning of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond the place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade,

and yet the menace of the years finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll;

I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

At the time I took it as her speaking of herself, and the situation she had found herself in. But over the years, I now know she wanted me to live my life the way she had hers, with nothing but strength and content in her heart, no matter what stood in her way. 

Her funeral was quiet, as often funerals are. My father and I were the only relatives attending; as far back as I can remember, our family had always been quite small. Most of them died in the same matter mom did, of cancer. But it didn't matter. We were all we had, and for that matter we were all that we needed. But the silence while her casket was lowered was overwhelming; it was not silence for mourning and sadness, but silence to honor her memory as well as the mark she left on me.  And in her memory, we etched the word 'INVICTUS' into her stone, as a memorial for not just who she was, but what we remembered her for. And little did I know, that that word would have a profound effect on my life.