Randoms by Rach

Lonely Child

Today's prompt for The Challenge is to write about a childhood memory. I've spent the last hour trying to think of something happy: some fun, carefree incident. But I got nothing. Nada. So I will tell you the story around my thirteenth birthday.

My grandfather (who was not a good man) lived with Mum, Dad, and me. He always had. I was terrified of him. At the same time, he was the only person who was always there for me (just a little background info, to try to explain). He died in his sleep in the bedroom next to mine about nine or ten weeks before my thirteenth birthday. Despite the terrible things he'd done, I mourned him, and missed him greatly. It didn't make any sense back then. It still does't. I should have just hated him.

Anyway, my thirteenth birthday. My Mum had gone into hospital the day before my birthday, as she was having a knee replacement surgery on my birthday. Just a little more background info: Mum had severe rheumatoid arthritis, and was constantly in and out of hospital. Like, all the time, since before I was born. So the morning of my thirteenth birthday, Dad woke me and left for work, with a quick birthday hug. Then, when I returned home from school, it was to an empty house. No Mum, no grandad. Dad was still working, and my instructions were to cook a meal for as soon as he got home, so we could go to the hospital and see Mum, following her surgery.

I let myself into the empty house and felt more alone than I had ever felt. So this is what it was like to be the magical thirteen. I sat in the kitchen, crying, and wishing I could die and feel nothing. Things had been tough before, but after that day, things were never the same again. I was never the same again.

I'm sorry, to all other people taking part in The Challenge, I'm sure the prompt "childhood" is supposed to be happy. But this is all I could find.