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An Earliest Memory

My earliest memory is now kind of vague. I was about seven at the time. I never had a father. I lived alone with my mother and I couldn’t want more. One day she began to start looking sadder. I never really knew what was going on. I thought it was all as it normally was. I never saw it coming.
One day she dropped me off at school. I had a pretty bad day. Things weren’t going so well. When I got home my mom was home early. She let me know something that made my day go from bad to worse. My dad finally wanted to take responsibility for me. He wanted to get back with my mother. Naturally she was opposed to the idea. I too was opposed to this. I didn’t want to see him. I just thought that if he wanted to take care of me he should have begun to do so far before I was born. It made me furious that he thought he could just jump into my life.
My mother eventually gave in to my father. Even to me it was apparent that she still had feelings for him. I still didn’t want this to happen. I wanted it to end soon. I wanted him gone. I only wanted one parent to care for me like it had been for all my life.
I got my wish weeks later. He still hadn’t moved in with us but he had been over the house a few times. I really didn’t like him at all. I still couldn’t get over the fact that he would just abandon my mother and me. I was afraid he’d do it again. Well anyway, one day my mom dropped me off at school. My day was great. I learned all sorts of new fun things. We played with magnets a lot. The whole day was mostly learning science. I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my mom what I learned. Five minutes into my 24-minute walk home a cop car rushed past me. My mind raced with ideas of growing up and being a cop. Minutes later an ambulance and a fire truck followed. I thought of being a fire fighter and saving lives, a hero like all kids wanted to be at one time or another. I walked faster today and got home a bit early. I was shocked to see the cop car, ambulance, and fire truck outside my house. The cops wouldn’t let me go in the house. They had the police line tape around the house. I kept questioning them. “Where is my mom? What happened? What is happening?” They only replied, “Get back. It’s not safe.”
I tried to sneak past the cops and into the house. I got caught. I was forced to sit in a cop car. They thought maybe that would calm me down. Maybe I’d get all excited being in the front seat with all the cool things. But I wasn’t. Soon the whole left side of the house, where the kitchen was, exploded.
One the neighbors went to my house earlier and noticed the door was open and my mom’s car was still home. Nosily she entered and search for someone. She called out and got no reply. She went in the kitchen and found my mom. She called the 911 and told them what she saw. They found a not left by the murderer. Like some sort of sick joke it said, “I want to play a game. Follow the clues to find the combination for the bomb locked in the stove. Your first clue is in the child’s room. Find the object that holds and item that though far from the point it doesn’t make mistakes, it fixes yours.” There never were any other clues. Just some sick freak that somehow locked himself in the stove with a bomb.
I had no clue what was going on for days. I had to stay with my grandmother for along time. To my dismay I soon had to live with my father. For days we wouldn’t even talk to each other. We did talk, but just to decide what we’d eat for dinner. Slowly we began to have conversations. I got used to the fact that I had to stay with him.
A conversation came up a month later. It was an explanation I really wanted to hear. He wanted to tell me why he tried to come back into my mother’s life and try to be a father to me. He told me how his father left him and his mom and never came back. He said he hated his father and never forgave him. Only recently did he realize that he had done the same thing. He came back to fix this mistake because he wanted to be better than the man who had done it to him.
After hearing that I had a whole new respect for him. Of course things are never perfect and I wish my mom was still around, but it can’t be changed. I learned to deal with things and to move on. More importantly, I learned from my dad that it’s better to take responsibility for your actions rather than just running away.