corrupt child
I remember the exact moment when my life began the downward spiral. It was 1994 and I was almost six years old. My moms best friend, Sarah O’Keefe, was in the hospital for her recent heart problems. Sarah had been nearly as much a part of my life as either of my parents. She was family, like a second mother. I was staying with my grandmother and grandfather in South Hadley, and my mom was with Sarah at the hospital. She had just walked in the door and I ran up to her, gave her a big hug, and innocently asked, “How’s Sarah?” my mom had tears streaming down her face, but managed to ask me to sit with her on the couch in the living room. It was there that she told me Sarah had died from a heart attack, and that with her last breath, she asked my mom to take care of me for her. As traumatic as that was, it was infinitely more unbearable after taking into account the events that had taken place over the last few months. Around 2 months before her death, I was with Sarah watching movies, when she told me she had to inject her medicine. I had never liked needles, so in an effort to help me feel more comfortable around them, she let me inject her medicine into the tube that went into her chest. I remember sitting there on her bed with the syringe in my hand and doing what she told me, but then something went wrong. All I remember is screaming and crying and an ambulance coming and taking her away on a stretcher and feeling very alone. My mom may have been there and tried to comfort me, but I don’t remember. I just remember Sarah lying still with her eyes closed and her mouth open as the medics took her into the ambulance. I almost killed my best friend in the whole world. I did something wrong and two months later she died. That same frightened child was whimpering and crying alone in the corner inside my head for six long miserable years as I watched more and more of my friends and family die and get lowered into the ground. I lived my life with the belief that it was my fault Sarah died. That’s why I’m introspective. That’s why I cant open up to people. I live in constant fear of losing the people I get close to.