Sunday, June 10, 2012

Home Left Me


5th March 2012
Dear Cassi,
       
The other day someone told me that they had left home young. I returned this note with the information that I had not lived with my parents since the age of ten. The conversation went well, but as I was left alone to think a spark of anger grew into a fire that has lived in my chest since.
       
When my mother passed there was a commotion and a swooning over that lasted for a month of two, but then the family turned away and left the three of her children to live on. The eldest of us was fourteen and I the youngest was ten. They were well aware of my older sibling’s mental problems at the time so I cannot even begin to believe that they felt he would be an acceptable guardian.
       
I would tell the other two to make out the shopping list and then once a week I was taken to the store to buy the house keepings. A ten year old in charge of their own nutrition is never a good idea, but I think I did all right.
       
Still, that fact that no one step forward to say “look after you children,” sticks in my gut like bad beef. Worse than the beatings I took or the headaches is the fact that the world looked away. Childhood is a time of light and life but I lived in the dark cold of indifference. It is that cold that lives in my heart even today and the reason that I do not get lonely. I have come so used to being alone that it is who I am.
       
There have been so many times in my life that I have stood wounded and bleeding without the aid of others that I now have litter faith in its coming. I know not what the dawn will bring, but whatever comes I will great alone. This is the cold nature of my life and what I have come to understand.

Live in light and warmth, little sister



Richard Leland Neal

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