Love Me Tender

Prologue: Pain

When we were little, everything was about the fun and the games. We never realized we would have to grow up and actually look life in the eyes and live. We didn't know that we would have to make decisions that could hurt people. We didn't understand pain. But do we ever? The pain we felt when someone didn't want to play with us on the playground, the hurt when one of our friends said something mean. Those things were nothing compared to the all consuming pain that is heartbreak.

When I was eight years old, I received the largest and most potent dose of pain that I still, nine years later, think anyone could ever bear. George Hunt, at thirty-six years old died of complications associated with leukemia. George Hunt, who was just a man to so many people, was so important to me; he was my father, my daddy, my rock, my protector. And then, just like that, he was gone. Removed from this world like a staple being removed from paper; leaving gaping holes in every piece he touched, in every person.

The doctor said that eventually my mom would stop cry every time she looked at my sister and me, that someday the pain would go away, and that I would be able to think of him and smile. She got one out of three right. Eventually my mom stopped crying. But that's only because she went silent.

After the crying, came the depression. She laid in her bed every minute of everyday, only rising to use the bathroom. My sister, who was fifteen, took care of her. Before we left for school she would take Mom some kind of drink that had all the nutrients in it that she needed, and after school she would lay in Mom's bed and talk to her. Of course, our mother never talked back to Diana, but we like to think that she still listened to what she said. This went on for years, and slowly Mom started to emerge from her room for meals. First dinner, then lunch, then breakfast. Before we knew it, she was camped out in the living room rather than her bed and the only thing missing was her melodious voice.

I had forgotten what it sounded like when I finally heard it almost two years after the demise of my father. So sweet, so soft, so comforting.

She came back to us slowly, just a few words at first, then a few more, and then we were having conversations around the dinner table.

And before we knew it, it was time for Diana to leave for New York University, all the way across the country. She was leaving to seek a higher education, and I was going to be alone with my mother who was still more or less incompetent.
The death of my father had sent her into a depression like I had never seen before and would never see again. She had 't even been so depressed when my twin brother, Aiden had died.

Gosh, I never realize how death surrounded me, how around every corner, the only certain thing was death and unhappiness. When we were four, Aiden and I were playing in our front yard with a soccer ball - we wanted to be professional soccer players when we grew up. I kicked it a little too hard and it went rolling out into the road. Diana ran after him as he fetched the ball, but she was too late.
Aiden passed away in the
hospital that night and part of me died with him. For a long time, I thought it was my fault. Even at four years old I was a killer. But now that I'm older - almost eighteen - I know that's not true, and the death of my twin brother was not my fault.

My point in telling you all this is not to make you pity me. It's to show you that you have to go through the bad times to get to the good ones. You have to go through pain and suffering to get to happiness and joy.

My name is Lillian Hunt and this is the story of how my life began.