FCYU-Feature Story

Alone With My Questions
When my parents died, they left me without answers.

By Cynthia Orbes

For years and years after my parents died, I kept myself from remembering them. Each Christmas, especially, I felt sad and angry because my parents couldn’t be with me. But for the past few years, I’ve gone somewhere private on Christmas Day and let myself remember the holidays we had together. I’d always liked when Christmas came around, because my father was nice to my sister and me, buying us a lot of presents.

One Christmas Eve when it was snowing and I was about 5 years old, my father took us around the neighborhood to look at the Christmas lights. I loved the houses with the most lights. They were so bright and beautiful. It feels good to think about those times because it means I’m not forgetting my parents. That is one thing that I don’t want to do.

Painful Memories

A lot of the memories I have of my parents are not so happy. When I was little, my mom and dad would yell at each other and sometimes he would hit her. After he stormed out of the apartment cursing, my mother would cry. I hated it when my mother cried.

When I saw her hurting I would start crying. If she saw how I felt she would stop. I’d often run to her and hug her. Other times I didn’t know what to do. My mother would say that she was OK and tell me to go watch TV. She told me not to worry about her, but I worried anyway. I felt angry with my father and I tried to stay away from him.

My parents usually fought at night after my father had been drinking. My mother tried hiding beers from him but he would always yell so much and try to find them. When he asked my sister and me where they were, we wouldn’t say. But he would either find them or buy more.

At the time, my mother had a broken leg so she wasn’t working, and my father was either working at a distributor or not working at all. My mother was often mad at him because she was in a wheelchair and needed his help at home, but he was out drinking all night.

Young And Scared

When my father drank, he was terrifying. One night he even threatened to hit my grandmother. My mother was yelling back things like, “If you touch her I’ll break your face. I’ll kill you.” She was sort of crying when she said it. Then he threw a beer bottle at my grandmother, giving her a black eye. My grandmother just stood there, weeping. I wanted to do something or say something but I was scared of getting hit so I just watched.

Another night, my mother told me and my sister to go outside to call the police. We didn’t know how to (I was 5 and my sister was 7), and we were really scared of my father, so neither of us called. I felt bad. He was hitting my mother and I couldn’t do anything about it.

The most painful time for me, though, was one night when my mother was crying and telling me, “I never wanted to be with him. I hate him. When you grow up, never get a man like him.” I didn’t understand it but I remembered it. When I think about it now, I wonder if her having children was a mistake.

When my dad wasn’t drunk he could be kind and caring. I liked when he took me to school or to the park sometimes, or let me help him cook by putting some noodles in a pot. When I finally learned how to rollerblade, he was coming down the street and said, “That’s my champ.” I smiled.

He Wasn’t Coming Back

When I was in 3rd grade, my dad got very sick and had to go to the hospital. He died on May 6, 1996. One of the secretaries in my school called me down and told me. I was more shocked than sad. I didn’t even cry. I got angry. I thought, “He was never there for me. He could have tried harder, but he gave up.” I thought about the times he got drunk and hit my mother and I had no sorrow in my heart.

Later on I realized that he wasn’t coming back. Then I missed the good times and wished he hadn’t drunk so much. I cried once because I wanted to have a perfect family like other people, but I didn’t have a father.

We had a funeral for my dad, and he was cremated, but now I don’t know where his ashes are. I wish that I did, because in a weird way I would feel as if a part of him is still with me.

Lingering Questions

One day a friend of my father’s told us that our father once said, “I have two beautiful girls at home and they don’t love me.” I wanted to cry when I heard that. It showed that somewhere in his heart he cared. I never thought he loved me or my sister.

I didn’t ever get a chance to have a serious conversation with my father. I wish I could have. I want to know what it was like for him to have two children. I wonder, “Did he love my mother? At one point?” They would always argue and fight. I don’t remember a time when my mother and father were happy together. I never saw them hug or hold hands.

It was the drinking that made them fight, but why was he drinking in the first place? He once had that job at the distributor but then he lost it somehow. Why couldn’t he look for a job, or at least try to get his life back on track? I know that his brother had died. Could that have been the reason he gave up? He never talked to me about his past, and my mother wouldn’t tell me about her life, either.

After my father died, my mother did not act much different, just depressed. She tried not to show it but she did not seem to have much energy. Even without my dad, she kept on drinking.

The Worst Day of My Life

About two years later, on December 13, 1997, she died from a heart attack. Her blood pressure was high and she was drinking too much. I want to erase that memory so I do not have to remember it. It was the worst day of my life.

I never asked my mother about her life because I wasn’t thinking at that time that I needed to. I was just a little girl and I didn’t think that she would die. I thought that she was going to live forever. She told me, “I am going to be with you even when you’re 90.” I believed her.

Now I wish I knew about her childhood—how she did in school, what schools she went to, what she went through when she was my age. I want to hear about how her mother and father raised her, how she learned how to cook well, how she became a good mother to me.

Lately, I’ve allowed myself to think more about my parents, and wonder about them. There’s so much I don’t know.

Still Wondering

I wonder how my mother and father got together. If my mother loved him. If she planned on having kids. If she was ever in love. If she could go back in time and erase anything, would she? Did she have any regrets?

I hate thinking about my questions, because I can’t get any answers. They are all lost now.

My mother was everything in the world to me. I hate remembering, even now, that she’s gone. Now her memories have disappeared, and she never had the chance to pass them on to me.

I do know a few people who knew my mother and father and might be able to answer some of my questions. Right now, I don’t want to let my past into my life anymore. But some time in the future, maybe when I’m done with school and I have a decent job, I think I will be ready to find out more about my father and mother. For now, it’s been enough to write down the memories I have.