Stuck

     Here I am stuck in my crib.  I may be 20, but I'm stuck in the memories that this old and beat up crib holds for me.  As a two year old, life was pretty hard for me.

     I can remember one day for some reason as clearly as a newly washed window.  It was a weekend I think, but I can't remember exactly.  All I can remember is my dad's tears.  He cried all day and never stopped.

     I later found out that the reason my dad was covered in tears that day was because my mom had been diagnosed with cancer.  Due to the fact that I was only two at the time, I had no idea what cancer even was or how much of an impact it can have.

     My parents were never home.  They spent all of their time at the hospital.  My mom's case of cancer was so close to shutting her body down that any second that she spent away from the hospital could mean death.

     Alice was her name.  That name still makes me cringe, even after 18 years, whenever I hear it.  Whenever my parents both needed to be at the hospital, she would always be waiting at the door with a smile on her face.  A smile that would soon turn into a frown as soon as my parents closed the door. 

     I can remember her yelling Clarissa Anne Thompson, pulling on my brown hair, and making my blue eyes water in fear.

     When my dad always arrived home, I was so thrilled.  I would always cling onto him and would never let go until Alice left.

     I saw Alice mutiple times over the next few weeks.  The times seemed back to back.  I wanted her gone.

     One day my dad came home looking the saddest that I had ever seen him.  I now that was because my mom had past away.

     The next day I woke up in my crib.  I managed to get out without any help.

     I waddled around the house.  No one was there.  Dad had left me.

     Everything else after that was a blur.  I now know where my dad had gone.  He went to the bar.  He decided to go and get drunk.  He couldn't stand mom being gone.

     Later on they found him dead in a ditch.  No one knows why he was there.  Maybe he had jumped, but they smelled alcohol in his breath.

     So here I am, stuck in my crib, wondering why this all happened.