To Remember

Memories are the things we bring along that sustain us through the pain. Memories… Memories can inspire… They show us what is gone is not lost, and the lessons taught, are not forgotten. Today we are here in honor of such a memory. The memory of a man who overcame, who loved and loved deeply. Something we all wish to aspire to.

In my mind is a picture. A picture of a man standing with a snapshot of time in hand. With a smile that ached the heart. So fragile he seems for a man so strong. Life gave him a love that made him stand on his feet. Oh, the tale. The tale of love that almost never was, wells my eyes into a blur.

“Dad?”

“Hmm, what sweety?”

“…”, gently he pats my head in silence.

“Your mother was a special woman. I wish…” the crackle in his voice, I’ve heard it before. I told myself never again will ask such a question but it hurts. The stings from jesters poking at what’s missing. Children can be cruel but their ignorance makes it a shallow thing to endure. Still, some know the weight of their words.

When a child grows to a certain age such ignorance isn’t ignorance is it? Dad… forgive me for causing you pain. What is a picture worth if I have no memory of that thing? So carelessly people say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Yet I hear nothing – for me, it is your words that tell the tale. Only in your words can I learn anything.

“… Dad… What was my mother like? Who…who was-”

“Dear stop…stop… Why… I suppose I should understand…to you she’s nothing but…but…a-a-a stranger” he laments. I’m sure he’s told me this before but I need to hear it once more. The tale of my birth, of this ghost that haunts you, that pains your soul. I’ve noticed since long ago, how your smile…

I remember asking about my mother…a stranger who gave birth to me. It… It was a tale I needed to know. As anyone would suspect, it was not a tale filled with memories that did not pain. But on such an occasion as this, I believe it is a fitting tale to show the strength of the one whom we are gathered here for today.

My dad had lost everything. As he recalls, I had on the advisement of a friend, invested all the money he had in Company A. The company was an up-and-coming tech firm, that would revolutionize the industry. One day his friend calls him and tells him, he needs to take out his money as soon as possible. Without much thought, he did so, much to his dismay later. This action got him thrown in jail for insider trading and to make matters worse his friend unbeknownst to him had painted a very different story to the authorities. Because of this story, he was forced to pay restitution which drained his bank account.

Unsurprisingly, his friend never went to jail or was even arrested. That friend somehow gain access to his apartment and when my dad came home… There was nothing and with no money, he was unable to pay the rent. His landlord whom he considered a very reasonable and caring person, put him out on the street for fear of being associated with him.

“You know Faith, your mother never liked me,” he says with a somber smile, “… I was on the streets for about a year before I ever went to a shelter. Your mother and her parents were volunteers…well her parents really. She…she was dragged there against her will as she said. Hahaha, I met your mother on my third day there. She was responsible for handing out blankets and I…being new didn’t have one as yet.

I remember hearing someone called out of my sleep by a voice that felt indifferent like they couldn’t be bothered. As I turn to see who was calling. There stood your mother a light chocolate brown beauty. The world had sent me an angel… Yes…yes it did indeed. An angel with emeralds that looked down on me.

The way you winch reminds me of her but that’s to be expected. You look more like her than me. A bit littler with the same creamy brunette locks.

He never thought she’d give him the time of day. She was going to college soon enough and he drop out with nothing. How or why would my mother ever even entertain him? At the shelter, he watched her work – a slow, lethargic dance of agony. He’s a guy so…enough said. Each time she’d simply glare at him with contemptuous eyes – he’d smile to which she’d sigh and go about her day. This carried on for close to three months. Any conversation was more an exercise in her making sure her lungs worked as she bellowed at him for anything. He said she’d come at him for some reason most days when she was there.

As a lion hunts its prey, either you run away, or fight back but slowly and surely the lion will wear you down. My dad was that lion hunting my mother. He had an odd way of marking the calendar. Ever since I was young on every calendar physical or digital, he kept a few days marked off. But there was one that was different was the others – that day for him never existed. On that day he never worked, he’d just sit by the fireplace clasping his hands. Staring intensely as if to find something or rather as I came to realize as a teenager he was frightened.

“Dad?”

“Is something wrong, sweety?”

“It’s February 10^th.”

“W-was there something you needed? I’m sorry if I forget, I… There’s no excuse-“

“Dad?”

“Just tell me what you need, sweety.”

“Why do you afraid of this date?”

“I’m not afraid. I-I- “

“Then why do you? You sit there looking at your hand like-like there’s blood or something. Like you did something wrong, I know you, you’ve never done anything you didn’t have to,” a smile sets his face ablaze. There’s my dad I thought. Nothing to worry about. I mean he has me.

“Thank you, sweety. It’s time I guess.”

“Time?”

“Yes, this date is the day I got kicked out the shelter,” he said sorrily. He had always avoided telling me about much of his time at the shelter. Only telling me bits and pieces – the good stuff. I was poised to hear this tale.

“That day your mother came to the shelter angrier than usual, she even outright paid no attention to me, as I stared at her. Never looking, to the point where an older lady asked her if something was wrong. Her reply was all men are dogs, she just didn’t realize. The lady tried to inquire further but she brushed her off saying she had work to do so leave her alone.

I was flabbergasted, to say the least. I didn’t remember doing anything, I mean yeah, I talked to some of the other ladies who were there…but not like with your mother. Me and them had friendly convos, every now and again but it was your mother who lighted up my day… She knew this…I think. I wasn’t hiding it for sure.

Anyway, after that she didn’t come back to the area I was in for the rest of the day. You could imagine how disheartened I was. I just couldn’t understand, what was wrong. The shelter had a yard and they often encouraged us to take a walk or just get in a morning stretch. After waiting and watching the clock, I realized it was hopeless. Better that I go take a walk and get some fresh air to clear my thoughts.

As I walked, I kept thinking about what she said. Why? Why did she say that? What did I do? I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Lost in thought I stared at the ground as if it was going to give me any answers, so I turn my head to heaven to ask God. As I did, I saw your mother across the street talking to a guy, he had money from the flashy clothes he was wearing and the car a Porsche Boxster. Well, there you go, why bother with a bum like me?

I could feel my heart sink. Who was I fooling? She has options and I’m not one of them. Still, I was transfixed on the scene.

The memory that frightened him so much was the day he beat some rich dude half to death. It doesn’t sound like a good thing but hear me out. This guy and my mother were talking and Dad soon realized it wasn’t going well. My mother was clearly upset and kept lashing the man’s hand away every time he tried to touch her. She was maintaining a distance of half a person in between them and stood with her arms crossed, eyes and mouth raised in a pensive manner.

Standing on guard, he kept watch. And he watched but he heard a staff of the shelter calling his name and he went to check for a moment as to why they were calling him. That staff told him, my mother had asked them to tell him goodbye as she wasn’t going to be coming back. Before the staffer could finish my dad rushed back to where he had seen my mother. She and the man were gone but the car was still parked on the side of the road, where he had seen them.

Frantically he looked around but saw no one. Then he looked back at where the car was and wide-eyed, he noticed the alley that was there. Quickly he hopped over the shelter’s fence and rushed to the alley. Telling this scene my dad shutters, both in horror and in the rage that overtook him. He didn’t know how but this man was on the ground with a cloth over my mother’s nose and mouth as she struggled. You know they say a matador uses a red cape because it makes the bull angry, well my dad saw red and the scene was indeed red. Blood red, stained with that man’s blood everywhere.

The staff whom my dad had left hanging, had gone and come after him but seeing him jump the fence, thought he left. It’s your choice to stay or leave most shelters anyway and since he had checked himself in. There was no reason to go after my dad. He was just another lost cause but my dad had rushed to the alley and this staff realized whose car was parked just outside of the alley. Going back inside he got a few people and they crossed the street and found my dad beating that man senseless. They pulled him off and realized my mother was there as well but she wasn’t conscious.

I’m sure it is no surprise what I’m going to say happened next. The guy said it was my dad who had attacked my mother and that he tried to stop him while pointing to his face and the bruised on his body. Signaling that you could see how that turned out.

“Liar!”

“Liar, I-I’m no liar.”

“You-you had that cloth there over-over her nose and mouth and-and- “

“Stop! Paul, stop! We all know how emphasized you were with Jeana.”

“That’s right, I just told you about her not coming back to the shelter.”

“See-see, we were having a little private time when he attacked us.”

“I had reason to attack you, didn’t I?! Stop lying and admit, what you did.”

“I-I did nothing, I only tried to defend my fiancée, that’s all.”

“F-f-fiancée…”

“That’s right Paul, Jeana is going to marry Paul and then go off to college.”

My dad was cast out that day. He said he was lost and broken, as he lay in the park watching the moon that night. He thought takes was no point in living anymore. Stumbling threw the trash he found a glass bottle.

“It was the perfect tool. All I needed to do was break it and I would have a makeshift knife… No need to for that look… It breaks my heart” he said trembling, “your mother had the same look when she found me. I had just broken the bottle and was checking to make sure it was sharp enough. Out of nowhere.

SMACK!

Standing there huffing and puffing she was. As if she had gone mute, she pointed at the bottle and motioned that I throw it away. In a daze, I did just that and the next thing I felt was her arms around me. Sobbingly she thanked me again and again. I felt at peace as I embraced her as well.

My mother saved my dad from committing suicide that day. If not for her I’d have never been born honestly… That alone…that alone…

Sniffle, sniffle.

Excuse me… After that the fairytale completes. My mother marries my dad and lives happily ever after… Not quite though. My dad and mother spilt up that day with my dad vowing that he’d come and find her and she gave the titular line I’ll be waiting.

My dad didn’t go back to the shelter but instead chose to remain on the street because he didn’t feel it was a place he could return to. He did odd jobs to make a bit of change and saved up enough to get an apartment – just for a week, is all he could afford. He got some clothes from the Salvation Army and cleaned himself up. With no resume and just resilience he tried to get a job but who’s going to hire someone without anything to show who they are? I know, I know, I’m contradicting myself. If no one hired him, how could he pay for an apartment? Simple, he was never hired, but he did odd jobs and the people were grateful enough to pay him a little something. Your next question is obvious. Then go ask them for a job – he did. They weren’t hiring.

Frustration filled my dad each day that week. He figured, I got cleaned up and I have on fairly decent clothes so why? Why won’t anyone hire me? The week ended and he was still jobless and now he was homeless again.

That Friday morning, he packed up what little he had and got ready to leave.

“With my things in hand. I took one more glance at this room that had been my home for five short days. The bed was stiff as wood but I didn’t need to worry about somebody taking it while I’m out. Had my own bathroom and a window I could sit by and enjoy the breeze, albeit the area was a bit noisy.  It was fun while it lasted.

Just as I was about to grab the doorknob there was a knock. I opened the door and it was the landlady. She asked to come in and I said of course. A bit puzzled, I reassured her I was leaving since I couldn’t pay the rent. She glanced around the apartment and then turned to me.

“I saw you going every day.”

“…”

“I wondered if it was the right thing to even let you stay here… What with you being jobless and as disheveled as you were? But your earnest look told me everything.”

“… Well, I can’t say I – “

“Let’s stop right there. I didn’t come here to throw you out. In fact, I could… I could use some help around here.”

“… I-I- “

“No need to worry. I don’t expect you to know anything but you seem to want to work…and I could use the help. So, here’s my proposition. You can stay here for as long as you want or until you find work somewhere, your choice. All I ask is you help me around here. What do you say?”

“… Yes-YES!”

Due to the generosity of the landlady my dad had a job and a place to stay. He was there for about two years. In those two years, he never forgot my mother. He’d tell me, every day he made sure to try and picture her in my mind. To remember his promise, he kept a journal. I have it here. A tattered leather book with tape overall to keep it together.

After those two years, he set out to find his bride, to find the love of his life. Although he didn’t much care for the shelter, he found himself back there to see if her parents still volunteered. They no longer did but luckily some of the staff remembered him. Apologetically they offered him any information they could. With that information, he found my mother’s family.

But everything wasn’t as good as he would have liked.

“I was overfilled with joy when I found them. Came to their home and politely knocked on the door. Her mother greeted me and after a short conversation explaining who I was, she invited me. She called her husband and he came downstairs to see what was going on.

… They told me Jeana had cancer and was in the hospital. A joke, I thought it had to be a joke. The woman that lay on that bed was a shadow of the woman I knew. Of the memories, I held onto. My heart ached to see her like that.

He strengthened himself for what the struggles were ahead and… married her… my mother. Through the cancer treatment, somehow, somehow…they had me.

… I should stop calling her mother, she was my mom and I’m sorry…sorry you never heard me say that, Dad.

… Goodbye.