The Day My Earth Stood Still

                                                    The Day My Earth Stood Still

                                                            By Daryl Campbell



         I go back to the Christmas after I turn twelve, when my worldly innocence is still there, when I still have the vision and thoughts of child. The memories of my childhood are still there: I remember what I'll do in my future life, how successful I'll be, and how I see the things around me through rainbow colored glasses. Sure, I wasn't nearly a perfect child, but I had so many things on the horizon, despite my constant knack for trouble. I'm curious, still pushing at the boundaries we typically push at, even the boundaries that weren't meant to be pushed at. I remember that Christmas day at  my grandmother's very well. I remember the presents. I remember my family. I remember sitting on the back of a gray, seventy-nine Thunderbird and watching my mother struggle out the door and across the garage. She's so thin and wiggles so much when she walks. She kisses me goodbye and tells me she loves me before getting in the passenger side of the car. I remember that the SON OF A BITCH she's married to doesn't help her get in. The car's already started before she manages to get there. I remember her waiving goodbye as they back out of the driveway. And I remember, most of all, that my mother is forever gone at that moment.

         I saw my mother for the last time at three eleven pm on December twenty-fifth, nineteen seventy-nine. Two weeks later, my earth stands still.



                                           *    *    *    *    *    *



         I sleep late that Saturday, it being Saturday and me being twelve. The day passes with all the usual things: arguments with my brother, getting into to trouble for something I either did or didn't do, and playing with friends. The fun comes later, around four or five or maybe even six. My father decides to take me and my brother and my sister to a park by the high school.

         Time passes quickly at the park, darkness closing in about us with such unexpected speed. My brother and I notice a strange silence from our father as we play that evening. We've talked about his actions on several occasions since and agree that it's a forewarning of what we were to experience next.

         The four of us get in the van: my father, my brother, my sister, and myself. Dad doesn't start the it after we're all in. He tells us he has something he needs to talk about. It's January fifth, two days before his birthday, and I assume the fact that he's getting older is the reason for time together at the park, but, as I hear he needs to talk with us, I know something is suddenly wrong. It's strange how terrible things hang in the air so coldly and perniciously, even before you know what they truly are.

         “Your mom won't be coming home.” My father's words strike like a hammer.

         The next few moments are oddly dizzying. I've never seen my father so sad before that moment. It sits in my thoughts to this very day. I remember my brother, Clayton, crying first. His heart breaks right there next to me. Then my sister, Ayradth, starts crying, more of the fact that she's caught in the sudden wave of emotion than fully realizing what she's just lost. Tears were in my eyes, but anger takes hold of me. I'm quiet, slowly sinking into the black that will cloud the rest of my life and never again let me touch the boy that vanishes a moment before. I lose who I am, forever changing who I'll be. I've regretted not crying with the others that night, have wondered why I couldn't let myself. After all, it will be years beyond this before I'll stop secretly crying myself to sleep at night, years before the loss of my mother would lift its weight off my shoulders, years before I can forgive my father for taking me to play at a GOD DAMN park before my soul slips away.

         I feel my earth slow to a stop. My thoughts are dull and it's so hard to move. I don't remember the drive home. I'm lost in a place that I won't be able rescue myself from. I know I'm still there somewhere, stuck in the moment when my earth stood still.

         The tears come late that night. Everyone else is sleeping and I finally let the misery pour from me. I'm tired and lonely and hurt far more than I ever have. My eyes grow heavy and I fall asleep. I remember the sleepy thoughts of that twelve year old boy even now.

         “Fuck God!”

         Time passes and the hurt eventually fades, but the boy I was has never returned. I love my mother, for all her faults, and I miss her terribly. That being true, I far more miss the boy who I never saw again. I wish I can have him back.