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((This is me writing out of boredom. We shall see where it goes))
Perhaps from the very start of my life, I sensed how out of place in the world I would always feel, or perhaps somewhere in my little newborn mind, I sensed the tragedy I would have to endure in my life. Nothing is for certain about those moments except that I cried endlessly.
My father does not tell the story often. I can tell it causes him a great amount of pain. Usually when I ask about my birth, I get the same narrative.
"Your mother, she was so proud of you. In that moment of pride and accomplishment, she appeared more beautiful than I had ever seen her," he would start and his eyes would glaze over as he returned to the distant memory, a memory of better times. "Her eyes were like stars as she stared down at you. You cried in her arms, but she did not seem to be offended. She merely proclaimed that it was what babies were born to do- cry. To her, your cries meant strength and life. They were welcome signs considering how hard her pregnancy had been and how weak she was. She named you Millie after my sister who owned the inn where you were born."
The smile that had been growing as he talked so lovingly of my mother would always fade suddenly at this point. His eyes would grow hard and he would look off into the distance, as if trying to stare down the devil himself.
"And then they came. They took her, and they ruined our happy family," he would say in a quite voice as his hands tensed.
I never knew who 'they' were. I tried to ask. Did he mean angels? I knew my mother died shortly after my birth. Did he mean the men who took her to the grave and buried her? Who? Who was they? I thought for sure that I would never found out, yet I always tried.
"Who? Who took her?" I would ask each time, trying to change my tone in hope that he might change his mind and tell me. Sometimes it would be full of curiosity, other times, soft and cautious or loving and prodding. Yet he never told me.
"It was a long time ago, and it doesn't matter. She died and as you cried as an infant, I cried with you." His eyes would loose their glaze and it would be replaced by a sadness that made my heart ache. I could never decide if asking about my mother was worth it. He would start out so happily, but end so sadly with a "Let's not talk of it now." As I grew older, I asked to hear the tale less and less.
My father never remarried. I am sure he never even looked at another woman after my mother. Although he never said it directly, I knew he loved her nearly as much as life itself. I think if he had not had me, a small infant, to take care of, he would not have walked on the earth much longer after my mother departed it.
As it was, he stayed with me on this earth. I knew very little about my beginnings. I had been born on July the 16th in the year 1837, the year Queen Victoria took her reign. I was born in Aunt Millie's Inn on the other side of London. Soon after my mother died, my father decided to find work in the south. He claimed that he did not want me growing up in the dirty city, but I always had the sense that he was running from the sadness, hoping that it would fade with distance. I am not sure that it ever did.
Anne Onymous · Tue Oct 06, 2009 @ 03:06am · 0 Comments |
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