Young and Misunderstood

I was 10 years old when he left. The only man I ever loved. My hero. My best friend. My dad.

I remember the days he would come home from work and I would run up to him like I hadn't seen him in forever. I remember sitting on his lap while he told me stories and made me laugh so much. I remember him dressing me up like a princess and taking pictures of me in his yellow car. I remember being happy. Smiling. I remember being loved.

I try so hard to understand how my life went from all that happiness to sorrow as I watched him lie on that bed, restless and weak. Sometimes I would gently lay a towel on his bed to try and calm his fever, and as it got worse I was told to play in my room and give him space. They thought i didn't see it, that I didn't feel his pain. That's where they were wrong. That's how I became misunderstood.

Soon he was gone. Never to return. My heart broke into pieces and I was never the same again. I was placed in another family and life was to move on like nothing happened. How could it when the love of my life had left me? When the only source of my happiness had been lost? How could it when all I had inside of me was darkness that no child should ever have? No one ever asked me how I was; how I felt. And when I was quiet they thought I was being difficult. There I was again, misunderstood.

I had already lost a mother at an infant stage. What was I without both parents? What had I done so wrong to go through that? All that grief and pain and anger overshadowed my life. I was all alone in this world where everyone expected me to be okay. I can't even think of a world where that sounds possible. Maybe in the movies...but my life was definitely not one.

I carried myself on every day, reassuring myself with each step that I would be fine. I fell a lot along the way, yet no one even noticed. Here I was surrounded by all these people and crying inside for help, even just to talk, and yet no one heard my silent cry.

They say it gets easier with time, but it doesn't. I still feel the way I felt when they told me he was gone. How I have managed to get here and be this emotionally strong is beyond me. I carried myself through the darkest hours of my childhood. I wanted to be part of the games they played, the conversations they had, but I had a dark cloud over me that they could not see.

I wish they could have understood and been more patient with me. But taking this long journey of healing on my own has been just what I needed. I can look back now and just be so proud of myself for carrying on even when it hurt. I have so much respect for that little girl who held her head high even with the death of her hero and a suppressed memory of her mother's death. She did it. Misunderstood as she was, she bloomed like a rose and became so beautiful and strong. She may be bruised. She may be scared. But she sure is brave!