When I Was Five

Before I was born my mom wasn't doing too well. She had been kicked out of her parents house, separated from her sister in a divorce, was battling mental health issues, and became a single mom with no sign of the father. When I was born I meant the world to her. I was the only family she had and I was the only thing she looked forward to. We didn't have a lot of money but that didn't stop her from doing everything she could to make sure my life was better than hers at my age. We lived in a tiny one bedroom/one bathroom house in LA where the bedroom was the living room and the bathroom was my playroom. But that didn't stop her from having my birthday parties be the biggest and most expensive parties ever. It was as if she knew my life would be turned upside down so soon, but no one else had the slightest idea. My mom’s best friend was able to be by her side through all of this. He was in the delivery room during my birth and cut my umbilical cord, and even let us use his house for doing our laundry or just to hang out. His partner was always there for us too, they got together the year I was born so I don’t know any life without either of them.

On New Years Eve of 2005, I was thinking of nothing other than the next years' Christmas and if it would be better than the amazing one I just had. This year we had moved into an apartment building with more rooms and more space. We got a cat, and my mom's boyfriend stayed with us occasionally. He would sleep in my room because there was no way I was letting them sleep in the same room together, so I would stay with my mom so she wouldn't get scared all alone in the dark like I did. In the middle of the night on this night of New Years Eve I woke up to a strange noise. I moved closer to my mother for comfort only to feel her shaking intensely. I turned around to see her foaming at the mouth and with her eyes closed still moving around. I started to yell and her boyfriend came rushing in right as she rolled over and hit her head on the nightstand. She fell on the the floor and stopped shaking. Apparently she stopped breathing and her boyfriend began to do CPR, or as much as he knew how to do. After that my memory of my mom was incredible, I was only five years old. But when a five year old is traumatized, they tend to have a jump start at remembering so I am still able to remember this incident along with my whole life with my mother as if it were yesterday.

That night the police and paramedics came and took her away. My mom's best friend and his partner came too. A bunch of neighbours I had never seen before began piling into our small living room. The police showed up taking pictures and I was told to be removed from the situation so they put me in my room with my “uncles” and my mother’s boyfriend. I had no idea what to think. I didn't know what was going on and I most definitely didn't know that this would change my entire life. Hours later, after being excluded from any of the investigation, an officered entered my room looking for me. He sat down in front of me, asked me how I was doing, and almost started to cry. He told me that my mother was dead and that there was nothing they could do. She died on impact of hitting her head. I buried my face into a pillow and my memory after that point is blacked out, until the first day of first grade.

At this time I was living with my uncles, going to school and meeting all my friends that I would continue to be with through all of my life. It was during this year that we would be in court to decide where I was going to live for good. I was in the waiting rooms for hours before they called me in to talk to the judge. He asked my name and asked me about my different relationships with my other family members and my uncles. Eventually they decided I would be adopted by my uncles and I would stay with them in LA so that I didn't have to leave my life here.

It was the worst thing that happened to me, but it changed my life for the better.