Unwanted

When I was four years old, my father was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A fight broke out at the local pub and he was shot when one of the men pulled out a gun. My Dad was a fellow wasn’t fighting, he was just a bystander, at least that’s what the cops said... Later that night he died in the hospital from the gunshot wound. He never even woke up to say goodbye. It was a tragic time for my family and especially since this all happened on my birthday. You see,  Dad and I shared the same birthday.  He turned 28 years old the same day and I turned 4.

After my Dad died my Mom was a complete mess. She stayed home day after day and cried all night long. She never seemed to eat and when she did it was ice cream and junk food,  She didn’t see me when she looked at me anymore. It was like she looked through me and my older sister. Like we were a bad memory of what she once had. Her life that slipped away from her the night my dad died.

I came home one day after school and noticed the car had been moved. I ran in the house excitedly tripping on the top step and face planting into the screen door. The loud bang echoed throughout the house as I fell to the ground. I jumped up to go see my mom. I still wanted to know where she had gone, what she had done that day, I prayed she had snapped out of it. I prayed that my old mom had come back.  As I began to get up, I see my mom coming down the hall barely able to walk. She cursed at me for making all the noise, horrible words, I had never heard her say before. As the tears welled below my eye lids I ran through the kitchen and noticed a large amber bottle of liquor, half gone on the counter. I recognized it as “wobbly pop “ that my parents used to drink at Christmas.