I Am A Snowflake

I AM A SNOWFLAKE
By: Sarah Clydesdale

I keep trying to think of my life without all the horrible memories I have in my head. It’s funny really, I have tried everything I can think of but, I just can’t erase my past.

This is my story.

I was born to two - very irresponsible - parents. Apparently, my mother loved clothes more than anything, and my father enjoyed everything that didn’t include responsibility. So for two whole weeks I was their new pair of jeans or a must see baseball game. Then, after the jeans started to fade and the game was coming into the 9th inning, they decided to give me back. Actually, they dropped me off at an elderly couple’s home somewhere in a different town; in a different world from when they were from. They tried to erase me, like I tried to erase my memories, except just like me, it didn’t work for them.

Rita and John Miller, the elderly couple, were kind people. They cared for me and made me a part of their home. For three years I grew to love them and they truly came to love me too. On my third birthday, at about ten o’clock at night, our house caught on fire, and went up in flames. I woke up choking on the smoke, and I started to cry for Rita. Neither of my new parents came for me. Instead a man dressed in black broke down my bedroom door and carried me out of the house. His name was Carl, and he was a fireman. Needless to say Rita and John died in that fire, and once again I didn’t have parents.

Barbara Anderson, a woman who I’d grow very familiar with over the next few years, came for me that night. She picked me up in her car and we drove away. We drove for a long time, and when we finally stopped, we were parked in front of a large building with a big red door. Together we walked up the foot-path in the dark and knocked lightly on the door, so as not to wake up anyone sleeping inside. A big round woman dressed in a black and white gown answered the door. Her face was kind and fresh – the most noticeable attribute; seeing as it was the only visible part of her. My mind instantly thought penguin but I didn’t want to say so. She smiled at me, and instantly I fell in love with her.

I learned later that the lady was a nun and her name was Sister Marie-Claire. I also learned that it wasn’t just a large building with a red door, but a group home for unwanted children; it was run by the church. There were a lot of other children in the home, most were older than I, many were sick, and others just didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. I wasn’t at the home too long - a week maybe. Being such a young child, I was what they called ‘uncorrupted’, ‘still impressionable’. And so, a few days after my arrival at the home, I was sent to live with a young couple, who couldn’t have children of their own.

Harry and Louise Henderson were working class people, who felt that their personal lives were empty without a child to impress their morals and ethics on. I was to be that child. They taught me math and to read, and by the time I was five I was a child prodigy. What five year-old has read Wuthering Heights or Hamlet. On the day I turned five, two years after my initial arrival, Louise told me that she had finally gotten pregnant, and that although they were not going to send me away, I was just plain Hannah, not Hannah Henderson anymore. They moved my room up to the attic, and all my toys were no longer mine to play with. The Hendersons gave me one luxury though; they allowed me to keep up with my schooling, but only on my own time. I could read all I wanted… as long as the chores were done first of course. After the baby was born, Harry suddenly realized the responsibility that comes with a newborn, and became frustrated. Rather than taking it out on someone his own size, I became his punching bag. Somewhere along the way, the Children’s Aid Society forgot about me. Barbara Anderson thought I was safe in a loving home, if she’d only known the truth. Harry got a little carried away one night. He broke several of my ribs, my nose, and my collarbone. A neighbor heard my screams of pain, but waited a day before calling the police. When the police arrived and demanded to see me, Harry took off out the back door and ran away. The police climbed the staircase towards the attic, and when they found me, lying in a pile of my own blood and tears, in urine and vomit, they carried me out of the house… out of the Henderson’s lives… and into an awaiting ambulance. After that, I guess Harry had to buy a punching bag, because I was no longer there.

After a brief recovery in a Children’s Hospital, I was placed immediately into another foster home. Jackson and Sharon Murphy seemed like good people. It was Jackson actually, who told me I was a snowflake. He said that every snowflake was special, each unique and no one snowflake alike another. I was ‘his’ snowflake and he loved me. When I grew a little older I realized the negative side of that remark. Jackson didn’t mean it to be an insult, but if you think about it, snowflakes really are unwanted. Most people despise snow. So it was actually quite fitting to be called a snowflake; seeing as nobody wanted me. Anyway, Jackson took me everywhere with him. Some days we went to Jackson’s work, and then on other days we went to, what Jackson called, ‘our special place’. It was called, “The Wagon Wheel Inn”. We’d go there once a week, usually on a Monday, because Jackson said nobody was ever there on a Monday. We would swim and talk, but of course, only after Jackson watched his favorite movies on TV, with the naked ladies. And only after we played house. I was always supposed to be the mommy he said, and he was always the daddy. We played a lot of games in our ‘special place’. The games weren’t very fun, but Jackson told me that eventually I’d like playing them. When Barbara came to get me five months after I’d arrived there at the Murphy’s, I was placed into a special hospital where they treated people who were sick in the head. For some reason, they thought being sexually abused and exploited was damaging to a six-year-old child. I was there for two years.

When I was about eight and a half, I was sent to another group home. It was smaller than the one from before, there were only six of us children, but it was real professional… at least until the doors were locked and the kind people running it took off their masks and showed their true faces. Rositta Meigel was a harsh woman, with long curly black hair, and eyes as green as the leaves on the trees. They weren’t kind eyes though, they were cold, very cold. Her brother Enrique was also a cold man, but he was not quite as bad at Rositta. She hated me so much. When one of the younger children, peed the bed, Rositta took it out on me. She dragged me into the shower and turned the hot water on, it burned so badly that sometimes my skin would start to peel. She would yell at me and tell me that I was good for nothing, said that I should have changed the sheets on the bed before she had found out. Enrique agreed with her, only he thought I was good for something. He too was lacking a punching bag.

On my ninth birthday, Barbara came to get me again, and brought me to a small farmhouse a few hours away. She claimed that the people taking me in were wonderful people, older-but looking to raise more children as their children, were already grown. When we were walking up the foot path towards the front door, a tubby woman with short orange hair came running out of the house, scooped me up, and hugged the daylights out of me. Ruby was her name, and her husband was Paul. They took me in, and loved me to death-quite literally actually. They died, two years later, a day before Christmas - I was 11, turning 12. They had been finishing up their Christmas shopping when their truck hit a patch of black ice and broke through the guard rail. Nobody actually told me any more details then that; however I assume they drove off the bridge into the river, because I don’t know where else there were guard rails around our house. When the police got to the farmhouse, Barbara was just arriving. I knew right then and there that my life as I knew it was over… again.

After Ruby and Paul were killed, Barbara brought me to the group home run by the church; the one with the red door, and Sister Marie-Claire. It was a nice change from all the other group and foster homes I’d been in throughout the years. And though life with Ruby and Paul was wonderful, I was isolated. I never saw anyone but them, and occasionally their children, who visited on holidays. But at the home, there were so many other children, and everyone was willing to belong somewhere, as long as they were not alone. I made my first real friend here. Shannon was a very short girl - at least a foot shorter than I. She was thin and had pale skin. Her hair was blond, but looked almost white in the sunshine. She had a delightful smile though, and she was very kind… you could tell by her eyes. We never really talked about our pasts, we only dreamed up our futures. We would go off in the playground and sit in the corner talking about what we would become when we grew up. She was going to be a horse trainer living in Texas, running her own ranch and married to a cowboy who wore a white hat. Or a gymnastics’ coach, living with her husband Pierre, a Frenchman she’d met in Paris while in the Peace Corp. I was going to become a famous writer and tell the most amazing tales, so that girls like us would have things to imagine when there was nothing worth dreaming about in their lives. Or a scientist who could clone the perfect parents, so that the unwanted children of the future wouldn’t quite be so unwanted. Shannon and I were inseparable until we were both 14. The last day I ever saw Shannon was a Friday. A guy at school had been making fun of her all afternoon about her height, and she just wanted to go home. I was stupid though, I wanted to go check out the new books at the Library- they came in every Friday. So rather then walk home with her I went to the Library and she walked home alone. Later that night when I’d arrived back at the group home, I was told that Shannon had been adopted that afternoon; I never even got to say good-bye. With Shannon gone I had very little to do with my spare time so I took to helping the nun’s take care of the children.

It was a dreary fall afternoon when a very tall thin woman, who was far from pretty, but so electrifying in presence arrived at the home. She was looking for an older child, one who could help her in her store, one who could take care of herself, but who still required parental supervision. Vicki Townsand picked me. Vicki had a German accent; at least I think it was German. She ran an antique shop in the city. It was a run down place, but full of magic. There were so many artifacts and goodies, as well as every classic novel you could ever want to read, and more. It was heaven for me, and Vicki knew it. She was glad that I took such a liking to the place, because she had a new boyfriend and they wanted to spend as much time as possible together. She was very open about her relationship with Andrew – a doctor. A doctor of what I don’t know, she always said he was the doctor of love, but I really don’t think he was a doctor at all. He didn’t seem very smart. She would share every aspect of their relationship with me, from their arguments - to their sex life. Vicki always said that girls wouldn’t be so curious about sex if they knew everything about it. Quite frankly, I hated when she spoke of it, but I didn’t want to mess up what I had going for me, eventually something would go wrong anyway. Once again I was home schooled; I did all my school work during the day at the shop when we weren’t busy, or at night in my room, when Vicki and Andrew were… occupied. Everything was great, I was alone and very lonely, but I was content. I wasn’t being beaten or abused in anyway, it was like I had a roommate rather than a mother. I got paid for doing work in the shop, and though it wasn’t much, I saved every penny I could. I put all the money I made, into an antique lock box, I’d found while searching through some of the junk boxes Vicki had stacked in the back of the store. When I first found the box, there was a beautiful pair of earrings inside… studs… shaped like snowflakes. I knew then and there, that I was meant to find those earrings and that lock box. The next day Vicki took me to get my ears pierced. My fifteenth Birthday came and went, nobody noticed, nobody cared, but if I’d learned one thing through out my life up to this point it was that sometimes, if people thought you were invisible… you were better off. A month after my Birthday, some men came to the shop looking for Vicki. They were dressed in dark suits, and grim faces. I knew the second they walked in that it was over… again. Apparently Vicki was in the country illegally. They sent her home, and they sent me back to Barbara and the Children’s Aid Society.

I was immediately placed in a group home. It was a very old house, where the paint was peeling and some of the windows were broken. The roof was leaky and the floor was rotted in many places. It was so bad that if you weren’t getting dripped on in the night, when you got up to go pee, your foot went through the wood in the floor. The people who ran the place were actually really great people. They did the best they could - which never seemed to be good enough - but they really tried to make life as livable as possible for all of us unwanted children. There was very little supervision done here though. I was unwanted child number twenty-three. So as you can see, there were over twenty children in this home, and only two people to watch over us. It was here that I met Bryan. When I first saw him, he was like a god. His hair was blond and scraggly. His eyes were dark brown - like chocolate, and he had dimples that would shame any affectionate Aunt who would want to squeeze those cheeks. He was 17 though, and I had just turned 15. I tagged along with him most of the time. I know I bothered him a lot, but I really think he liked me. It was he, who gave me my first real boy – girl kiss. It was late one night, a Sunday. I remember because we were always aloud to stay up and watch the Sunday night movie on TV. Afterwards we decided to go and talk out on the porch. Summer was coming to an end, and for some reason Bryan said that I looked beautiful in the moonlight. He seemed to scare himself as much as me when he said it. I’d been told I was beautiful before, but by men who always wanted to hurt me in some way, but I didn’t run. Instead I said “thanks!.” We ended up talking half the night, and just before we went inside to go to sleep, he leaned over and kissed me on the lips. It was the only time we kissed, in fact it was the last time we spoke, but I had fallen in love with Bryan the moment I’d met him, and I was not going to forget that kiss. The next morning, Bryan was sent to a foster home somewhere, and I was still unwanted child number twenty-three.

When I turned sixteen, I was sent to a boarding school. The Children’s Aid Society thought I was too intelligent to be taking mediocre courses by mail. They figured being in a permanent school would be more beneficial than a temporary one. And so I became the newest student at an all girl Academy out in the country. Most of the girls there were rich and from prominent families. The other girls were like me, they were too poor to actually fit in with the rich girls, but too smart to fit in with the less than intelligent girls back at home. I made a few friends, but remained mostly secluded. I was only at the school for a year and then I graduated. My teacher’s said that I was too intelligent to have even been sent there in the first place, but were glad that I had attended. Barbara picked me up on Graduation Day, and drove me to the group home where Sister Marie-Claire was waiting. The discussion of University and College came up, but I knew it was impossible, and besides- I wouldn’t have fit in there anyway. So I was give a full-time job working for the church run group home with Sister Marie-Claire.

The children started calling me Sister Hannah, but I wasn’t a nun. Sister Marie-Claire told me that I would have made a wonderful nun, but also pointed out that to become a nun, you must have a vocation. I didn’t exactly know what that was, but I knew I didn’t have it… I liked boys way too much.

My life at the group-home was a full-filled one. When a young child would come up to me and tell me that they loved me, it made me feel good inside, because a child’s love is more precious then any other.

That year at Christmas, when Santa came to visit us Christmas morning, Casey, a four-year-old little girl- my favorite, told me it was my turn to sit on Santa’s lap. I hesitated, after all I was turning 18, but I gave in and sat on Old Saint Nick’s lap. When I looked at Santa, and watched his lips as he asked me what I’d wished for for Christmas, I knew in my heart that it was him that I wanted in my stocking. The man behind the Santa costume had dark brown, deep eyes, and they were as kind as I’d ever seen. They were young as well. This man couldn’t have been too much older than I, and I could tell he was shocked when I looked up at him too. There was a moment of utter disbelief between us, and it was only when Sister Marie-Claire cleared her throat that I told my Santa man what I had asked for, for Christmas. A vintage copy of Charlotte’s Web, mine had been read so many times that it was falling apart. He truly looked sorry for not having my book, but said that he had a candy cane with my name on it, along with the new Beatles record. I thanked him, even though we didn’t have a record player at the home, and went to help Sister Mary-Beth in the kitchen. Santa left a few minutes later, and some of the children started to cry. I think it was the hope that at least someone out there loved them, and for most children they believed that that someone was Santa Clause. Inside I also had the hope that Santa loved me too… only I didn’t mean the real Santa.

For my eighteenth birthday, I was officially offered a job with the group home as a tutor, and Sister Marie-Claire and all the children threw me a big birthday party… my first ever. We had cake and decorations and we all danced to the music on the radio. Later in the evening, after tucking in all the children and kissing them good night, I told the sister’s that I was going for a walk and that I wouldn’t be long. As I was strolling along the sidewalk, three boys stopped me, and asked me for a ‘fag’. I of course didn’t have one, but they wouldn’t take that for an answer. They tore at my Jacket, and searched for money. Since I didn’t have any of that either, they got angry. They pushed me into the park just behind the group home, and tried to take off my clothes. One boy became anxious and tried to rip them away. When they wouldn’t give he took his frustrations out on me, like every other man I’d ever known. He slapped my face as well as punched me in the stomach. I was choking for air when the other boy tried taking off my pants thankfully they couldn’t seem to take off any of my clothes. As they kicked at my ribs, and bashed my head into the ground, one boy noticed my earrings and decided to take them as payment, they took my cross and chain that was tied around my neck, as well as my rosary too. They might have killed me if a police officer hadn’t come into the park on his routine tour of the neighborhood. The boys ran away when they saw him, finally leaving me alone. I couldn’t see the policeman as he came closer, but I knew I was safe once he arrived. Then I passed out.

A week later I woke up in a hospital room, surrounded by flowers and home made cards from the home. Casey had drawn a picture of the two of us holding hands underneath a full yellow sun, with the words “Come Home Soon”. I started crying. It was so sad to read that, a four-year-old child referred to a group home as “Home”. Sister Marie-Claire came into my room shortly after I woke up, along with the doctor and a nurse. After a quick examination, everyone left the room except the Sister. She hugged me, and told me they had prayed for me everyday at breakfast, at dinner and before bed, and then she said she had a special gift for me. She handed me a small pink box, and I opened it. Inside there were a pair of snowflake earrings, but not like my other ones. These were gold, and very articulate. I told her I loved them and thanked her with all my heart. She only smiled, and took my hand. It was then that she told me that they weren’t from her. I looked at her puzzled, and asked who they were from. She smiled again and said they were from him and pointed to a police officer who had just entered the room. He was tall, with short hair – brown, and though his face was rough, he was very handsome. The policeman told me that I had mumbled something about my earrings while the ambulance was on it’s way, and then said something about snowflakes. I was touched. I’d never received such a gift from a stranger, but as I looked at him more closely he didn’t seem like a stranger. He came over to my hospital bed, and sat on a chair at my side. Sister Marie-Claire said she needed to call the group home to report that I was going to be back in a few days, and left the police officer and myself. He took my hand, which surprised me beyond words, but was confusingly comforting to say the least. I looked at him with suspicion in my eyes and he just grinned. His eyes sparkled, and my heart melted. “I have another gift for you”, he said. This time, I spoke. I told him he didn’t need to get me anything; it was I that owed him for saving my life. He just shook his head and placed a rectangular box onto my lap. As I un-wrapped the pink paper, and removed the lace and bow, I could feel his warmth at my side and I knew that whoever this man was that I could trust him. I lifted the lid off the box and saw an original copy of Charlotte’s Web. I looked up at him, and my mouth fell open. I started to cry. My Santa had come. He had saved me from the bad men, and gave me two of my favorite things in the world: my book, and my earrings. This wonderful man, who I didn’t even know, yet had known in my heart forever, told me his name was Nick… Nick Harris.

It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Santa turned out to be real after all, and I finally belonged somewhere- I finally belonged to someone.

Now I never found my birth parents, I honestly didn’t try too hard to find them. I don’t know if any of the men from my past went to jail, and I never found Shannon, even though I searched for years. But I did find my home. And oddly enough it was the group home.

Nick and I married a few months later and moved into a house across the street from the group home. Nick continued to work as a police officer and I continued to help the aging Sister Marie-Claire and the other nun’s who ran the home. I didn’t become a famous writer, and I never got around to becoming a genetic scientist who could clone the perfect parent, to be honest I never even went to University or College. I didn’t become something accomplished, at least not in the eyes of society. But if you ask Casey, or Nick… Sister Marie-Claire, even Barbara, they’ll tell you that Hannah Harris was a great woman… is a great woman. I may not fully agree with them, but they believe in me.

In all my years, I’ve finally found love. I cannot erase my passed, I can’t replace my memories with new ones, and I can’t start over… but why would I want to. If I hadn’t lived through all I had, I’d of never sat on Santa’s lap that year. I would never have known Shannon, or Sister Marie-Claire. And I wouldn’t have met all the interesting people I’ve known. Ruby and Paul… Vicki… Bryan…

I no longer hate Christmas, my Saint Nick fixed that one, and though I’m still working on liking my birthday, I’ve grown to tolerate the birthday parties Nick, the sisters and the Children throw me.

It took me a long time to put the past behind me, but if I’ve learned one thing through all this, it is that I am a snowflake, but I am no longer unwanted.