A Mothers Embrace <-- sad story I wrote

The coldness of the room surrounded me as I silently starred at the clock ticking away, waiting for the clock to hit the two. Suddenly the bell rang and we were dismissed, as I picked up my books I breathed a sigh of sadness, I hated going home. My mother was an alcoholic, always gone to the bar, she was never home. When she did come home, she came home drunk and smelling of beer, and she always took out whatever frustrations she faced during the day on me. As soon as I got home I jumped into the shower, the warm water trickled over my body, taking my pain with it. My fingers lightly traced the crude crimson cuts on my wrists. Nobody knew of the self-mutilation that would silently take place in my room almost every night. Some days I wished mom would come into my room and find out, just so she could feel guilty for driving me into hurting myself, guilt, the best revenge against her I could think of. I got out of the shower as soon as I heard mom stumbling through the front door, drunk again, as usual. I ran to my room and plopped onto my bed, starring at the ceiling, entranced, as I played my favorite music full blast. Next thing I knew I was asleep, in dreamland, where my pain no longer existed. I awoke with a strong urge to go to the bathroom, but as I walked into the bathroom I found mom, hunched over the toilet, she looked me straight in the eye. “ Its your fault I’m like this, you ruined me life” she exclaimed as she continued gagging into the toilet repeatedly. I ran to my room, tears flowing from my eyes. I sat on my bed and took out a blade from under my pillow, my only form of release from the pain that overcame me. I etched the word “disgrace” into my flesh with the blade, as I watched the blood trickle from my wrist and fall onto my pink bed sheets. As the bleeding finally stopped I fell asleep, knowing I would wake to find mom in my room, ready to add more bruises to the collection of bruises I had accumulated from her on my legs and back. I awoke to find what I expected, mom flashing a report card in my face. I was failing almost all of my classes. I guess the neighbors heard the screams and shrieks coming from my room, because later that night, as I sat on my bedroom floor, pills in my hand, ready to overdose, the cops came in and took me away, that was the last time I ever saw mom, as she stood in the cold winter air, watching me be taken away into the patrol car. Its nearly twenty-five years later now, I was fifteen when I was taken away from home. And now after all these years, I drive down a solemn road to the Old Folks home where I will be visiting my mom for the first time in twenty-five years. As I drive down the road thoughts fill my head as the autumn leaves fly around aimlessly in the gray sky. I finally reach the old folks home, and start my slow walk to room “205” where I will finally see the woman who bore me. I enter the room, my breath getting shallow, and I see an old woman, gray hair, once fair complexion now wrinkled, sitting in a rocking chair outlooking the window, she’s my mom. I sat down near her, she looks at me blankly not knowing whom I am, her mind riddled with Alzheimer’s. I slowly lift my sweater sleeve and expose a faint scar that reads “disgrace” still etched in my flesh, a chapter from my wrenching past. I can see moms eyes start to water, she doesn’t say a word but instead places her hands over the scar as if to say “your not a disgrace”. Tears start streaming down her cheeks and mine as she embraces me. And then I realize, that’s the first time I can remember that mom has ever hugged me. Two weeks later mom died, cancer claiming her life at the age of 80. I’m happy I made the choice to go see mom when I did, because I may have never found closure, and worst of all I wouldn’t have felt the feeling of being given a mother’s embrace. For a mother’s embrace is like the embrace of no other, it’s the kind of hug that keeps you going, even when you know there’s nothing left to live for.

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