I'm Not Sure

         I have always loved my life. The darkest times have always felt as wonderful as the happiest of times. Why else would I remember them so well? I remember the innocence of the tears from when I felt the pure emptiness of abandonment as I saw my father leaving me standing upon the squared carpet surrounded by arts and crafts projects of previous generations. I remember finding the dead dog with the small puddle of blood beginning to encircle his small resting head and the large brown eyes.  I remember the night I realized the truth of death and I remember the distant comfort of God’s fingerprint on my soul as I took the body and blood of Christ from the man of faith. I remember a lot. I remember it all at night; when I can’t sleep and my heartbeat shakes the bed because although my muscles remain resting, my mind has just finished contemplating the devastating effects of every mistake I’ve ever made and then every sequestered moment of time caused by luck when I could no longer keep the smiles from piercing through the protected mask that keeps the undesirable just out of contact. The resonating force of the mind is always ever present and one of the most interesting features of the human model of life. Every action that we think of brings with it the past of our entire lives, along with the knowledge passed down throughout human history that we carry as it is our birthright.

         I know that my history was less than desirable now when I finally found the wisdom to actually analyze it. And I know that still when considering the majority of my life that it has still been remarkably above average. Despite this I still wish that I could have been able to help my parents make the decisions I can know help them make. I’ve always felt that the greatest fascination people have in history comes from those that wish they could have changed it. I wish I could have stopped so many moments when my father made the choices that caused his unemployment again, when my mother let her anger be felt, when I never appreciated compassion, recognized the futility of anger, or at least when I didn’t say goodbye. The only consolation in these moments is the proclamation that I can use the moments of the past to create better ones in the future.

         I feel the innate mandate to provide for others that unfortunately isn’t absolved with mere thought anymore. When my father asked me to walk with him down the road devoid of any moonlight, his tie long gone, and his lamenting eyes just barely visible except for the reflection of the streetlight on the watery cornea as they concentrated on the ground to control his gait. I got a job and then another until my family was secure again. When my mother came home from her banks second audit I tried to support her and her difficulty in attaining her desire to go back to school. I stood by my mother’s mother as she tried to remember my name, but only succeeded in warning me of the dogs on the wall which came to take us away. When my brother had his first seizure I stood by the bed until the stretcher carried his shaking six-year-old body down the stairs, my body rigid as my mother cried. I helped regulate his medication that he would take for the rest of his life as the idiopathic disease he carried with him continued to dominate his life. If I could live things over again, I would appreciate the chance to actually be proactive instead of always barely managing to react in time to keep things from slipping away in glorious, unrelenting fashion.