The Things I Didn't Do

The Things I Didn’t Do

The nurse has come in to change my bedsheets again. I have grown so weak that I can no longer help by rolling myself to the side. It is torture to be a prisoner in my own mind. Do I somehow deserve this?

“Mrs. Wilson, how are you today?” I feel her take my hand, “Can you squeeze for me?”

I open my eyes and search for her face. I am trying to speak, but I’m just so tired. Is this really how it ends?

Is there even a heaven or hell? and if there is, which direction will my elevator take me? Certainly, I have tried to do unto others. What will I have to answer for?

Did I make my mother cry? I must have, all children do. Did she lie awake at night worrying about her wild child? Did I tell her that I loved her? I cannot even remember her face. Were her eyes blue like mine? Maybe they were gray. It’s all lost in the fog.

Funny. I don’t remember the nurse leaving.

It’s all fading. Everything I ever said. Everything I ever did. Slowly it’s all passing away into the ether. I am absolutely positive that I did something remarkable at least once.

Was I unnecessarily cruel to a single living creature?

Did I tell the people I love how much they mean to me? I think I did. Do they know? So hard to remember. It all comes and goes in waves and I can’t seem to remember anything.

Not true. I remember the boy. What became of the boy?

It had been a hot day and the sun was going down. The boy stood near the door of the corner store with a trash bag. I knew without asking that the bag was all he had left of his belongings. His hair was greasy and uncombed. His clothes were dirty and I am pretty sure that was a blood stain on his trousers.

He was young. He was too young to be homeless, but there he stood, an unacknowledged tragedy. A testament to the inhumanity of man, he may as well have been invisible.  

But, I saw him. He was beautiful once and I had known that.

How is it that I can still see his face? I had recognized him from my daughter’s high school. His name was lost to me, but I knew I had seen the boy.

He was strikingly beautiful, tall, and slim. There was an elegance to the way he moved that less effeminate boys never achieve. His voice had been a soft, sing-song lilt and the telltale lisp he had affected was charming and sweet. At least, I had thought so. He was obviously on the spectrum, but somehow his ultraconservative parents seemed to ignore that.

I was shocked to see that pixie face smudged with the grime of the streets. How long had it been since he had a bath? This was so unlike the boy I had seen on the stage at the high school. Why can I not remember his name and yet his face is still so clear to me?

I know that i thought to myself that it was a terrible shame. The statistics could be called embarrassing if they were not so damn disgusting. How many teens had been tossed to the streets for coming out? Is that what had happened?  

I feel movement around my bed. Someone is softly saying, “Mommy, I’m here.” Who is there? Who is touching my hair? I can feel your breath against my cheek. I know that you are here, but I just can’t seem to open my eyes. It hurts.

The boy stood crying as I entered the bodega to selfishly buy my soda pop.  His tears were silent. He looked at me, but I did not meet his gaze. I could have smiled as I passed. For all I know, it would have been the first smile the boy had seen in days. I could have done at least that.

I feel lips pressing against my forehead. I want to open my eyes and see who is there. I hear a gentle weeping, sobs sticking in someone’s throat. Who is crying? Please, don’t. For the love of God, please don’t. It makes me think about the boy.

The boy.

As I left the corner store, the boy stood in the fading light. His red-rimmed eyes briefly looked up. His shoulders shook, but he made no sound. His chapped lips trembled. They must have hurt so terribly.

I wanted to go to him and hold him. I wanted desperately to look him in the face and tell him that he was not alone in this big, scary world. I wanted to ask him if he was okay. Did he need a place to sleep? Was he hungry? Could I help him in any way? Did he want to come to my house and take a shower? Did he want to be the son I never had?

WAS THERE SOMETHING I COULD DO?

I wanted him to know that what had happened to him was an injustice. I wanted him to know that it was okay to be who he was born to be. I wanted to hold him while he cried.

I wanted to scream with him. How could someone do this to the child that she had carried in her belly for nine months? I wanted more babies, but one was all I had been blessed with. I could not wrap my mind around the entirety of the situation.

I wanted him to know that if he had been MY baby that it would not matter whom he loved as long as he was loved back. I wanted to tell him that it IS NOT love if it turns him away. I wanted him to know that he was a beautiful wonderment in a cruel world that DID NOT deserve him.

But, instead, I turned around and walked away.

And I have regretted that every single day of my life since.

I try so hard to open my eyes, but I’m just so very tired.

Tell the boy i’m sorry. I’m so…

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: Statistics show that up to 40% of homeless teens are on the streets because their parents have thrown them out for coming out. Only about 7% of youth identifies as either gay or transgendered.

These numbers are not just shocking, but are sickening.