In Her Forest Eyes

Tragic

As I walk, I listen to the calming sound my feet make as they step in synchronization with the rain across the wet pavement.  The puddles splash water onto the hem of my jeans, and the wind blows my rain dampened hair, causing it to slap against my sun tanned back.  It was June, a week after school ended, and a year since the passing of my mother.  Days like this remind me of her.  She loved the storms, so much in fact she named her only daughter after them.  Hannah Rain.  When I was little, on days when it would storm like this, she would take me onto our front porch, sit me on her lap, and we would sit in silence, embracing nature's beauty surrounding us.  As we rocked on the little woven chair just big enough to fit her small body and me on her lap, she would sometimes sing to me.

"Hush my child, listen to the rain - let it wash away your tears and take away your pain - Never let the scary clouds make you come inside - listen to the thunder clap and let your worries fly."

I've tried to mimic her melodious voice, but I will never sound comparable to her.  She sounded like an angel, and now that she is one, it makes me feel better to know that she and daddy can sing together in heaven. 

I shook the flashback out of my mind as I ran up the steps to my new home.  I opened the door, being sure to wipe my shoes on the door mat, and rung my hair out onto the porch. 

"Were there any people at the cemetery?"

I peered up the steps to my grandma as she leaned against the wall holding the house phone in one hand, and the other on her hip. 

"If there were, I'm pretty sure the rain cleared them out." I replied, walking up the steps.

She smiled and gave me a look that signaled to me that she understood that the rain wouldn't keep me from visiting my parents' graves, as I do every Sunday.  I smiled back and she blew me a kiss.

"Dinner will be ready soon." she said, still keeping on hold whoever she was talking to on the phone.

I nodded, and continued around the corner and proceeded up the steps to my room.  I hesitated at my door as I listened to the conversation she was having with the person on the other line. 

"...Fine, well, better..  Yes, it's been 2 months..  There's improvement, but the old Hannah isn't back yet..  It will take time."

2 months.  She was talking about the time since I was released from the Northern Blair Children's Psychiatric Hospital.  I paused as I felt more memories flood back into my mind. My father died in a car accident when I was in 7th grade, my first year of middle school, and shortly after my mother was diagnosed with post pardon depression.  She was sleep deprived because she would stay up all night crying, just to continue the cycle during the day.  She was barely a mother to me, and at times it seemed like I was the one doing the parenting.  A pretty big burden to carry for a 13 year old.  For dinner, when she would drag herself off of the couch to make it, all I would have was a can of soup, or something she could stick in the microwave. 

After she was fired from her job as a nurse for having several breakdowns at the clinic, they were all she could afford with the checks the government would send to the apartment we were forced to move into, and her food stamps. Even if she hadn't lost her job, I can't imagine that she would have ever cooked a real meal again anyway; it wouldn't be the same without dad. All she ever did was lay on the couch with the television on.  She was never really watching it, she always just stared at the wall, or at a random place in the room, with the same blank stare.  It wasn't that she stopped caring. she would give me small reminders that she still loved me, like when she would brush a light kiss on my forehead, or embrace me in a weak hug.  But I could still see it.  It was in her eyes.  The pain; the remorse; it wasn't going away.  Some nights I would lie awake in my bed listening to her sob.  These were the nights I wouldn't sleep.