My life story

Part 1: "I hate you!"

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It was a cozy Las Vegas evening with my mother, she had let me stay up late to watch Highlander the tv series. I had just turned 11 years old eight days prior to February 5th. However, I was unable to fight the heavy sleep in my eyes. As I was constantly fighting my nodding head I found myself awoken by my father dressed in his police outfit and a bouquet of flowers next to my Mother. You see he was the lead officer at a major casino in Las Vegas, NV and Valentine's day was just in an hour or so. I knew this because the 11 pm news was about to start as Highlander was ending.

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I was unsure of his exact title at work other than he was the boss and he had a been given the 'big gold key' to the casino and always bragged about his mob connections. I was never impressed as I had spent my entire childhood watching him drink and, albeit mostly listening to, him abusing my mother to temporary paralysis and even sadly watching her in the last months of her life start expressing anger at myself as I was the one who would take care of Mom and my younger siblings. She wanted me to ask for help but couldn't actually say it. It was her way of trying to avoid the inevitable. She had to stand up to her now power-hungry, mob-connected and police backed husband, who had been abusing her weekly. He was never always that way. Becoming a cop and moving to Las Vegas really turned him into a corrupted alcoholic cop who was constantly rewarded for such it seemed. At one point in time, I can recall walking into my parent's room at the request of my mother. She had a gun pointed in her face from my father, she had one pointed back. She wanted to me call the cops but my dad threatened to kill her. I think my presence pacified that situation.

Enough was enough. We were being picked up from school by our mother out of nowhere. She had made the sneaky but right decision to move out. She had only one option which was an abuse shelter for women and their children. The living conditions were not optimal but neither was living in a nightmare where the police and the mob were your greatest fear next to being brutally abused. She knew this couldn't end well but went for it. We, my brother(2) and sister(9) had visited these shelters with our mother. Although my siblings were in their own world unaware of the gravity of the situation I wasn't thinking it seemed like as an 11-year-old, I was thinking like an adult, only trying to provide solutions to unsolvable problems. I half thought my mother had stopped looking as she was tight-lipped about it after looking.

That was until she was bedridden on the couch after another heated argument this time for weeks. My grandparents stopped by frequently and knew what was going on. I had heard my grandfather swear vengeance many times. Not much could ever be done as my father was too heavily connected with the 'mob' aka 'CEO's of casinos', as he put it in his own words and the police department.

Now flashback to my father standing there over my mother with a bouquet of flowers. She had just healed enough to sit up straight the past couple of days. I could see the trouble in her eyes, sense of danger really. I, unfortunately, couldn't process that fully in my sleepy state. Like a child I still was I threw a fit when she requested I go to bed. "I hate you I hate you I hate you!" I proclaimed out of childish selfishness. I guess my dad saw what I saw in my mother's eyes and took out his anger on me..." Go to bed young man and say sorry or you will regret it." This was some new threat I've never had from my father. He said it so calmly that it only rang alarm bells until later in life. In response, I yelled even louder "I hate you, mom!". My father again calmly warned that I would regret it as I ran to my room and slammed the door. I should have known something was up seeing as I was usually physically disciplined for much lesser offenses and outbursts.

As I lay asleep my, Mother in a glowing blue dress as if it were lit internally, came to me in a grassy meadow. It was a serene dream. It was a very unreal dream as she was extremely happy and relaxed. I had not seen her like that well, ever to tell you the truth. The sun was bright, and the grass to this day was in the most beautiful meadow I've ever seen. She was telling me an important message. It was urgent too. Words were not coming out of her mouth as it was moving but no sound. I could tell she was telling me something important. I just wasn't sure in that moment.

On Valentine's day in 1996, I awoke feeling horrible for my words against my mother. It was no time to dwell on it for I had more important things to worry about like getting my family up for school and work. First, I took a shower and got dressed and had that dream on my mind. Then on my way to make to the coffee machine to make my mother coffee, I noticed my 2-year-old brother up watching tv. I asked him "Nathan, what are you doing up?". All he could say was mommy is sleeping. I freaked out as nothing seemed right especially with my 2-year-old brother watching the tv at 5:30 am, this was very uncanny. I ran into my mother's room and turned on the light to the room. She was not in bed. I freaked out. I searched the whole house, no mom anywhere. There was one last place I did not look and half knew not to look there. My mother's bathroom's light was turned off. I slowly walked to the light switch.

'Click' I can remember the light switch making that sound for some reason very vividly. There were shower towels and hand towels carefully laid out on the floor. It was weird. Then as I refocused my eyes up towards the bathtub
I had finally found her. She was staring at me with a blank emotional stare. Much like the exorcist movie, her head was turned 180°. Her legs were straight in the air except in the opposite way, the way in which only a double jointed person could. It was like a demon had lodged her in an impossible way into the bathroom tub. Just then at that very moment, her words came to me clearly from that dream...
"All you need to do in life is help people and you will be fine."

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