Cages of Love

Chapter one

I wake with chills and sweat running down my face and chest.

Another night, another nightmare.

I saw myself being taken away from my parents again in Greece. I remember the dark misty air and the sound of the rain when that man broke into our home and came straight to my room while I was pretending to be asleep. I remember him barging into my room, looking for me. He was calling me "Alina" and crying, he seemed completely insane. My mother wasn't home and my father woke up in a fright. I remember crawling under my bed to hide from this man before he opened my door. He had approached me in a park before and I didn't know nor understand how he found out where I lived, my name isn't Alina, I kept thinking to myself. I kept thinking this man is confused, hurt, needs to be in a mental hospital. My father ran into my room as the man was looking around for "Alina", my father was screaming for him to leave and the man just kept looking and ignoring him. Until my father went close up to him with his gun and told him "there is no Alina here, you are not taking my daughter, she isn't yours, you are confused and need to leave my family and I alone." The mysterious man begged my father to shoot him because he needed to be with Alina. I remember him telling my father "She looks just like my Alina and my Alina went to the park and never came back.." The man went on and on and from there on I didn't understand anything else he said, his Russian accent was thick and he was crying so much that it was so hard to comprehend what he was saying. My father called the police and reported the break in and said this man needed a hospital. I had always been afraid to sleep in a place alone since then.

This happened when I was 10 years old.

When my father got off the phone with the cops he told the man to get out of my room and wait with him in the living room for the cops. My father knew I was hiding and I could feel how relieved he was from afar that the man didn't touch me and that him and I didn't see each other that night. I remember hearing a gun shot after my father and this man went to the living room and I ran so fast to find out what happened. I saw the strange man lying on the floor with the gun in is hand and blood streaming down from his head. My father was crying in the corner and was stuck in shock, I ran to him "Daddy, daddy I'm so scared." and he picked me up and yelled "Vanya, my little girl. Vanya!! Oh I love you so much, so much so much. I'm so sorry this happened, but don't worry now - everything is going to be okay. Help is on the way." Shortly after that the cops were at my house and I remember hearing the noise from their cars and they spoke in Greek with my father. My father told him that the man had lost his mind thinking I was another little girl named Alina. The cop knew who the man was and felt sorry for him. He said the man had his daughter Alina taken from him and that she was found dead a few months ago. My father gripped me tighter and kissed my forehead. I don't remember much with what happened with the man on the floor or what the cops did because my father and I waited outside. By 4 o'clock in the morning my mom had gotten home from work and she knew everything that happened and she was crying and screaming for me and my father. We all hugged as a family and I had never felt so much love in my entire life. I had so much love around me. So much relief. My mother and father were kissing and hugging and they did the same to me. Ever since then I am so afraid to sleep in a house alone, although I know the man is dead and may his soul rest in peace, I am still so nervous.

It got worse when I was 14 and my father got sick with cancer. My mother had to quit her job to take care of him and my grandmother began to come over to look after me and help me get to school. My grandmother became my best friend in the entire world because she is so much like my father. She loved me so much and always told me I looked like him and that I had his smile. My grandmother and I prayed every single night for my fathers health to improve. My mother would too and she would pray for us all as a family to get through this tough time in our lives. I could always see in my mothers eyes that she wanted nothing more than a happy healthy family, it's what she strived for, maybe that's why she was a nurse. She always wanted to help people, she just never imagined it would be my father next. When I turned 16 my grandmother called my school for them to let me go home early because of a family emergency. I felt in my heart the whole day that something wasn't right. On my way home I was crying and I remember the mascara running down my face and it being so hot that I could barely breathe, it was so humid and sad that day. It was as if the world was mourning him before I could. When I got home my mother was facing the window breaking down in tears & my grandma was on the floor praying. I walked into my fathers room where everything was his machines, everything. That's when I saw him laying there, lifeless. I remember getting closer to him and going to grab his hand and grasp it tight. It was so cold. I was so confused and begged and cried for him to come back to me.

How could I live without him?

How can I go on without him there to protect me and watch over me?

Who will love my mother as much as he did? Who will love me as much as he did?

Why him?

I had so many unanswered questions.

From that day, I will never forget that pain. That emptiness. That feeling of not being there for him when he took his last breath. But I still felt his love. My father Peter Teresi was the first man who loved me and had my heart. The first man to protect me from anything and any heart break. The first man to tell me that love always comes first. I am 22 years old now and I still can't forget, the nightmares are still fresh, my heart has been broken since. My name is Vanya Teresi and my father died when I was 16 years old. When he died he took my heart with him and the pain won't ever fade.