Chapter One

I struggled into this world early at precisely 11:48 P.M on June 3, 2002, at Christ Methodist Hospital in Chicago. I later learned that just after midnight on the fourth, before I even had a name, my mother attempted suicide for the first time. For her maiden attempt, she fared rather well. Had she not already been at a hospital, she most certainly would have died. Ironic.

I didn’t stay long at the hospital. At six pounds and a few ounces, I was quite healthy, and the doctor must have decided it would be best for me not to be around, under the circumstances. My mom’s parents, who had come up from Florida to be there for the birth of their first grandchild, took me home to our large condo on West Van Buren Street, the house they had bought for us. Dad stayed at the hospital with his mate. He hadn’t a clue how to care for a newborn anyhow.

I remember a summer afternoon, a Thursday afternoon because it was the nanny’s day off, when I got tired of watching cartoons and went to look for my mother. I must have been two at the time. I found her in the living room asleep on the floor. She smelled funny and no amount of nudging or pleading could wake her. A cigarette smoldered in an ashtray on the coffee table beside a large, empty brown bottle. I followed the smoke all the way up to the ceiling. I knew that I shouldn’t touch the thing that smoked, but I couldn’t help myself. I picked up the smoking end, and the thing bit me on the tips of my fingers. The cigarette dropped on the floor and began to smoke even more.

I wailed and wailed until my mother finally awoke. She groggily looked around the room and looked at me. I’m not sure what happened after that. The memory comes to an abrupt end. I do know the house didn’t burn down, and I have no permanent scars—not on my fingertips anyway.

Not all my memories end badly. I recall a Christmas when I was just three years old. Along the stairs, on the railing, there was a sleigh pulled by several white reindeer with red harness. In the sleigh sat a red bearded figure with a bag of toys slung over his back. The tiny, multi-colored packages sparkled as did the cottony snow under the sleigh and reindeer. I would sit for hours on the stairs next to it admiring the sleigh and the figures, dreaming of driving the sleigh and urging the reindeer on up to the moon and stars fixed high above the railing.

I can’t recall the exact circumstances, but I remember a day when I was four watching my mother playing on a swing in my parents’ closet. Back and forth she swayed while my father pushed her from behind. While I watched, Dad hollered at me to run downstairs and grab a knife from the kitchen. HURRY, my father had shouted with his arms wrapped tightly around Mom’s waist.

When I returned from the kitchen, I carried a butter knife to give to give my dad, but he had no use for such a knife. BRING A SHARP KNIFE! So I ran down the stairs once again and pulled a knife from the wooden block. Up the stairs I raced, stumbling only once near the top. Dad grabbed the knife and cut something from around my mother’s neck. I noticed that her face was dark and purple and that her mouth was trying to work over and over like a fish out of its tank. I realized then that something was wrong.

After Dad carried her over and placed her on the bed, my mother coughed, gasped and touched her throat.

“Are you angels?” my mother had asked.

No. We are not angels.

“Why? Why won’t you let me die?” She began to cry.

I wanted to shout, “Because I love you, mommy!” But I kept silent and held my mother’s hand.

Facing It

by D L Edwards