Darkness of Dawn

22^nd November 2011

Dear Cassi,

   

   

The details of my mother’s death should now be clear to you, but the final note in this sad song is the topic for today. A good amount of my inheritance both in liquid assets and in overall value disappeared.

   

My home had always been a livable one. Not lavish by any standards but well kept. Within six month my father had ripped up the carpets and replaced them with the cheapest tiles he could find. The thin acrylic tiles were laid atop older wood, and so the wood rotted and expanded making the acrylic come up.

   

In six months my home went from middle class to a slum, and a slum it has been ever since. The old man felt no need to come home on a normal day, and so he came to see his children on the weekends just as he had when my mother lived. This gave my siblings free reign to do as they wished.

   

It is during this time that I learned to believe that abuse was normal as every day I came home to be beaten down. I lived in a family with no rules other than who can lie the best is right. It is from this darkness that my depression came.

   

Later when I complained of these things my grandmother could come up with no better defense for her son than that he could have stolen more.

   

From that time in my life was shrouded in darkness. I’d like to think that dawn has finally broken, and that I can see the sun. If that is true then it will be a slow sun rise.

Stay safe, Cassi,

Richard Leland Neal