I remember my first experience with you.
What a time to get to know you.
When I was down at my lowest, hurt, grieving and lost.
Who has time for a new relationship or love when you have so much to carry.
Before this my relationship with you was just a shallow passing by, a touch of the shoulder and a smile.
How could I love you then I was only 5.
No one really loves that young, because usually you don't know love until it's gone.
I learned that lesson.
I remember crying for what seemed like a month straight.
Is that why I don't cry today? Did I cry myself out?
Is the midst of the wailing and sorrow people would tell me to call on you.
I would try, but what I would ask would never come true.
All that did was make me hate you!
All that did was teach me to try and never get to close to anyone because one day they all would die.
I mean honestly who wouldn't feel that way?
It was so hard to cope so hard to believe.
All my life until that point I remember going to Sunday school and learning about "the greatness of God".
How we were all His "children". And how He loved us so.
I couldn't understand that.
All I wanted was to get visits from my mom and dad like the other kids in the hospital.
I wanted to see my room door open and I would be able to yell out Mom or Dad.
Why didn't anyone love me?
What was wrong with me?
Why did my mother have to be the one murdered?
Why did my aunt, who at that point was giving me shelter from the rain that was sure to come, why did she have to die?
I understood why she lied to me.
How can you tell a baby there mother is dead.
I wasn't even old enough to talk,she had to do what she had to do.
I believe she felt bad for me.
She knew one day I would find out or she would have to tell me.
She never got to tell me.
I wish she had.
Maybe I would have been able to cope better.
Her words were always the softest, her understanding was like memory foam around my bowling ball of hard life lessons.
What a difference it would have made.
But I had to find out the hard way.
I remember it like yesterday.
My aunt usually would come to visit me everyday in the hospital like clockwork.
On this day, July 1, 1987, she did not come. Little did I know she would never come again. In her place this day were her daughters. They came in with a look of uncertainty. I don't think they knew how to tell me, how to comfort me or how I would react.
Let me backtrack.
The only experience, to my knowledge, at that time of death was my favorite Uncle Jr. It wasn't unti I got older that I realized my uncle had died 7 months before my aunt would eventually pass away. I remember hearing about it and my aunt crying. I asked her, "what's wrong mama?" She said, " your uncle Jr has died so I'm sad." I asked, "what does that mean?" She said ironically, "he went to be with the Lord." I returned, "when will he be back?" She said, "he won't."
I, at that moment was confused. Why did uncle Jr leave? They told me he died in his sleep, and that my cousins would be coming to live with us. I was excited about that because my family was so close and all of us cousins were our only friends at that time.
The day of his funeral, which we had at a Uncle in laws funeral parlor, Garr Funeral home on Finlay st in the Over- The- Rhine section of downtown Cincinnati. I remember everything the seemingly long line to view the body. It came outside the building and at times it rained on us. When we got inside I could catch quick views of his gray casket. I saw people crying and ppl would reach in and touch him. Some would kiss him. Some would say a prayer. When I got to the front of the line, my Uncle Buck who I called daddy, picked me up. What I saw changed my life. It was not the Uncle Jr I knew. He seemed darker. His hands seemed flat. He was stiff. The most noticeable thing I saw was that his head look like it had been sown shut. I mean I could literally see the threading. I would later know that this was from the autopsy. My Uncle Buck said, "do you want to touch him" as he knew I was close with Uncle Jr. I said no, "he looks scary." He said, one thing is for sure in life, there are many things to be afraid of but this body isn't one of them. It can't get you because he would never move or wake up again. My uncle Buck cried for the first time in my life. (He was close with my Uncle Jr. They were drinking buddies. They even called my Uncle Jr "Grape" due to the wild Irish rose wine he drank. Little did I know that same drinking would be the cause of his death.)
It was at this time I knew what death was.....forever.
Back to the hospital.
The same thing happened when my uncle died, it was sudden. No one had ever came to visit me in the hospital but my aunt. The death of Uncle Jr had me traumatized. I don't know why but I knew she was dead. I started to cry before they even told me. I asked hesitantly, "where's mama?" My big cousin Viola who I always viewed as the fun house to go over, said, "Ab she's dead. She died yesterday unexpectedly." I remember crying, I can still feel the tears falling down my face. I asked, "so I don't have a mama now?" "What does this mean?" I had lost the most important person in my life. I was met with a bark from the oldest Sandra "that's not your mother, that's our mother, your mother got killed when you was a baby!". What?! My mother what?! What's going on here? Was my life a lie? It was in this moment that my heart broke into a million pieces. When they left I remember feeling alone in the world for the very first time.
I went into a very dark place. The type of place that would make a 5 year old want to kill themselves.
What good was it to live?
The day of the funeral came quick.
It was only three days after she had died that they had the funeral. This seems quicker than any funeral I have ever been too.
I could not attend the funeral.
I cried so hard that day.
A nurse had actually attended the funeral early so she could get pictures of my aunt in her casket and she got me a copy of her obituary.
When she brought me the pictures and obituary I was expecting peace and maybe some closure.
I got a reality check.
This was real.
I had wished it wasn't true.
But sure enough she looked like Uncle Jr, dark, flat and.....dead.
I started to have conversations at this time with You.
I started to tell You that I hated You.
Why me?
What had I done?
How could you love me when everyone that I love is dying?
The nurses and even other kids always tried to cheer me up. But I, like my aunt and uncle was dead. My body was just alive.
I remember they used to try and bring Mickey Mouse and all kinds of Disney characters to my room to cheer me up. I never got into Disney because of that.
My innocence was lost.
Did they really think I gave a fuck about a damn mouse or duck.
I wanted to die.
It was only as a man could I understand what you had done for me.
Who knew that me getting hit by a car, placing me in the hospital at this time would save my life.
Had I been home I would have been home with my aunt and found her dead.
I have no doubt if I wasn't in the hospital I would have killed myself.
I wrestled with rather this was a good thing or bad thing.
But then I see my children.
Had I died, at 5 years old, they wouldn't be here.
These are the things I try and tell myself to keep my faith.
Is it really working?
Or did my faith die July 1, 1987 in children's hospital.....
