PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I am 22 years old, I live in the suburbs in a moderately sized home.  I live with my mother, and soon to be my brother and his wife.  I am stuck in a dead end job because I work to hard to stay in one position long enough for a true promotion not just transfers to other departments.  Until I was 13 my life moved smoothly, my dad was in and out of the hospital due to heart problems most of my life, I thought nothing of it because to me in was normal.  A few months after I turned 13 he died one night while I was asleep, that is where my life turned around.



My father was a pastor, as the youngest a lot was hidden to me about his health, my family, and just everything, I do not blame my family for it.  When he was a child he learned the horrible truth about people, that they are vile disgusting things.  His mother (my grandmother) helped the police by taking in kids picked up or taken from their parents for a day or two before a more permanent residence could be found, one day my dad was home sick from school and the police brought by two little girls abandoned by their mother when she ran off with her boyfriend.  In those days kids slept in rubber pants, my grandmother had her and my father bathe the girls so they could be put in clean clothes, upon removing the rubber sleep pants they found the boyfriend had raped the girls before he and their mother had run off.  On that day my father vowed to kill anyone who sexually abused his future children, he did not live long enough to carry out his vow.



When I was five years old my father had his first heart-attack and had to have by-pass surgery, it would not be his last heart-attack or surgery, there were too many for me to remember just when they all were.  After that first attack my dad began to treat me different and better than my two older siblings, spoiling me quite a bit.  Less than a month after his 52nd birthday he had his last heart-attack in bed doing a word puzzle, he didn't even budge in bed and was gone before the paramedics arrived.



The night my father died is the biggest regret of my life.  After the paramedics came i was given the choice, go to the hospital or stay the night with some friends to be out of the way.  i thought it was like every other heart attack he had had and choose to stay with some friends and missed the chance to be there.  I know no one believed it was really happening so i do not blame anyone for it, just regret not making the right decision.



Starting just a few months after his death my depression had already began to set in, a long time family friend who was more perverse than we knew decided to take advantage of my helpless loneliness in the worst way.  He sexually abused me and warped my mind in private for almost 3 years, it only ended when he went to prison for a conviction of doing it to another boy.  It would take another year for my family to find out what he did to me.



I passed my time doing nothing, just watching television having a severely stunted maturity level.  I was diagnosed with depression when I was about 15 or 16, because no one knew what was going on with me I was treated simply with medications which made me sick, sleep all the time, not eat, or not sleep at all.  I was sent to see a counselor for a while, but I saw him more of a big brother than someone to confide in so I only talked about my current crush in school.  By the time I was 17 I had been off medications for a couple years and had no counseling, I had begun to cut and think deeper about suicide keeping everything I had hidden, denying it even to myself.  I was being eaten from the inside out.



While all that was going on my mother decided to start dating again to maybe one day remarry.  I had started to admit to myself all that was wrong with me and that I needed help so I confided in some close adults who helped deal with the pain and seek a trial for the man who hurt me so.  When my mother first found it it seemed more like she was denying it too while knowing I needed help and sending me for a full diagnoses of all wrong with me.  I was severely depressed by this point and suicidal more often than not.



Medications and counseling again failed for all the same reasons, so by the time my mom found a man she may want to have married my problems were mine again with no help for them.  The man she found was a great man, a wonderful man.  Even though I was now 17 I still acted that of a 10 year old and a 15 year old on a good day, on my worst it was more of an eight year old.  They did end up getting married and I over time saw my mothers new husband of that of a dad and father not just a step-dad.



After I became more open about my problems in my life I began dating without dealing with them and it ruined every relationship I was in, I lied, hurt, cheated, manipulated all not because I didn't know better but because I didn't care.  All this time I am claiming to be a Christian on the outside with zero actions for what I really was, nothing.  After many rough relationships and false starts on my life I decided to find out what love was, I refused any answer biblically sound.  After a few months of searching I found the only true love comes from and by Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God.  I had stopped going to church to actually go years before this, so one day I went with my brother just to make him happy, while there I listened to the pastor and was amazed, although I do not remember what he was preaching on it changed my life that day.  I joined the church less than a month later and took on working in ministries and helping where ever needed, but there was still a hole in my life.



Through prayer and talking to others I found out what that the thing I was missing was, I was missing forgiveness to those who had hurt me.  Through more prayer I was able to forgive them, for everything they had done to me.  I walked away after that feeling better than I had in years, my life was going in the right tract, I had a great relationship with God again, what more could I ask for.



After a little over half a year with my life in order with God, He sent me His first big step of faith, my father was diagnosed with lung cancer, a latter stage kind with low survivability.  He started chemotherapy very quickly after getting diagnosed and within a couple treatments was already seeing improvement, by the fall it was nearly all gone, they call it remission because there is always a chance it may return.



Some in this world are called to celibacy, I am not one of them, I continued to feel the pain in my heart for the one God made for me and that I was made for.  I began to pray to God to send her to me (this being shortly before my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer that I began to pray).  After nearly a year being single through the workings of God, he sent me Beth.  I was her first boyfriend and she was my first girlfriend since I had gotten my life back on track.  In the beginning it was wonderful as it always is, after a few months and a couple little fights we got engaged, that was late summer as my dad was getting better that we got engaged.



As summer moved into fall we began planning our wedding, my dad continued to get better.  As fall moved into winter wedding plans were getting set and my dad was back to his normal self.  As winter moved along my father began to stumble a bit, forget some things easily.  When he was going into his last scan after his chemotherapy to get the all good message from the doctor they found it had spread to his brain.  On a more comprehensive scan they found the tumors too numerous to count.  As his condition worsened I began to take more care of him and my mother.  He died less than 2 months after getting diagnosed with the brain cancer.



After my father died my depression began to seep back into my life.  The fighting with Beth grew worse every week, and two months after my dad died she left me.  I do not blame her or hold it against her.



A new chapter is started in my life, I do not know to where it will lead, but I must follow it.  God is with me, and that is all I need.