Memories

Gone-Theodora Flint

   I spent fourteen days in the hospital with a concussion. In that time, I found out a very important piece of information. She was gone. My mother was gone.
   I was visited by person after person. Old friends, neighbors, classmates. They each had the same message, they were sorry. Sorry that my mom was gone, sorry that I was hurt. Most important, they were all sorry that I had the bombs go off in very vivid memories.
   I was visited almost everyday by child service workers. They stopped by to get any information on my mom and dad. I knew everything about my mom, but I didn't even know my dad's name. I also had to give them permission to go into my mom and I's apartment.
   There, they found my birth certificate, meaning they knew who my dad was. After they found it, I was visited for less time. A nice Indian woman explained that they were doing research, to make sure it was okay for me to live with him and that he was really my dad.
   I decided not to ask who 'he' was.
   I couldn't care who 'he' was really. My mom was gone. My whole body felt numb with pain meds and grief. I couldn't breathe easy and I couldn't stop trembling. Every time I shut my eyes, I was back there. Back in that restaurant. Back with the smoke and screaming.
   I couldn't focus or speak well. This wasn't because of the concussion. This was because, as a nurse said, was part of ptsd and trauma processing.

   The last day in the hospital was a hard one. I wasn't ready to go. I wasn't ready to move on or grow up without her. As a white woman with red hair, who was a CPS worker, lead me from the building. My chest tightened and my heart sped up. We got into a car, with her driving, and I shook harder and felt like throwing up. I was so messed up I couldn't tell her to stop driving or to slow down.
   She was talking and explaining things but I couldn't focus on it. Her words sounded like gibberish and her voice was way too high pitched and made my head hurt. I looked out the window at the blurred building and the happy people passing our car.
   We stopped in front of a airport. The woman got three suitcases out of the trunk and began walking inside the building while I starred in panic at it.
   I followed her inside and she smiled before going to the help desk and then walking to another person and handing them two tickets. She gave the suitcases to another man and grabbed my hand before we got onto the plane. We sat next to each other, with me next to the window, and she pulled out her phone and plugged her headphones in before shutting her eyes and taking a nap before we took off, leaving me in a state of panic the whole 47 hours until we reached Tokyo, Japan.