Prologue
The gray clouds blanket the sky, bringing out the beauty in everything, at least that’s the way I see it. I love fall, I fully believe it’s the most beautiful time of the year. All the colors, dark and vibrant at the same time. The way the air feels, the excitement and energy, like electricity flowing through the air. Fall is truly the most amazing time of the year. Not this fall though, this was the worst fall of my life, because this fall, I lost my father. It all happened so fast, one moment I’m waiting for my father to pick me up from school, the next I’m being informed that there was an accident. A week later we have his funeral, two weeks after that I’m being shipped off across the country to meet the mother I haven’t seen since I was two.
That was the thing about life though, you never knew what was going to happen, and you could never truly be prepared for it. I’m sure if my father was here, he would have some scientific saying about how life was unpredictable. He would tell me it was crazy the way I talked about fall, but I always countered with, it was crazy the way he talked about science. He loved science almost as much as I loved the way it felt outside right before it rained.
At the moment it just started raining, but I find no comfort in it. Watching the rain drops fall down the car window, only reminds me that we’re getting further away from my home, and further away from my father. My uncle and aunt say that, things will get better and that maybe living with my mother will be good for me, that maybe it’ll help me grieve and get better faster.
I know the truth though, they have six kids and two more on the way, there’s not enough room for me, and even if there was, neither one of them want to deal with the affects my father’s death might have on me. I don’t blame them though, I mean yeah, I’m a little upset, but I understand. My cousin Lucy says I’m different now, she’s only four, so she doesn’t understand what happened. For the last three weeks she’s been asking where uncle Erik is, this makes me cry, not because it reminds me that he’s dead, but because I don’t know how to answer her question.
The storms picking up, lightning now strikes across the sky. It’s only noon though, so it’s not that dark, the loud noise reminds me of the day after the funeral, that was the day it finally hit me that he was dead. My Aunt had taken me to my house to get some of my things. My house was a small two story, with one-bedroom downstairs, along with the kitchen and living room. The second floor held two more bedrooms and the bathroom. In order to get to my room, you had to pass by my fathers’ room.
This was the first time I had been back to my house since the accident, I had just been borrowing clothes from one of my cousins up until that point. When I went upstairs, my father’s door was open, and of course I went in. My aunt was down stairs, I had told her I wanted to do this myself. The first couple minutes I cried, but then something inside of me clicked, and I couldn’t control it. I just started throwing things, breaking them, ripping up papers and pictures on his desk. My Aunt heard the noise and came running into the room. She somehow managed to calm me down, but it was clear that I would need more than just a hug.
It was a week later that a lawyer showed up, informing my Aunt and Uncle that it was their choice if they wanted to take custody of me, or let it return to my mother. They decided that it would be “in my best interest” to send me to live with my mother. Within a week arrangements were made and I was packed and loaded into the car. My Uncle was driving me four hours away to the nearest airport that wasn’t completely booked already, my Aunt and Cousins already said goodbye before I had gotten into the car. Lucy still doesn’t understand what’s going on, she thinks I’m going to meet my father somewhere. When she hugged me goodbye, she asked me to say hi to Uncle Erik for her, I didn’t have the heart to tell her what was really happening, so I just nodded and told her I would.
The sky is darkening, but it looks like we’ll be out of the storm in an hour, just in time for when we get to the airport. Another streak of lightning strikes across the sky. The Electricity running through the air, reminding me of the first time my father explained lightning to me. All I want is to be that three-year-old kid again, staring in awe out of my window, While my father explains the universe in place of a bedtime story.
