In about 1988 December 24th, my biological mother took her own life*. I was sent to stay with her ex-husband Bruce Hazlett and his wife Cindy, my maternal siblings, and, their half-brother David. When, a week later I was shipped off to another foster home, it was because I was taking attention away from their son and because I was me. I read the report from the Big Box of Pain and it stated that he had said that I would always be Jessie Alden. Meaning I did not fit, nor would I ever fit into their lives.

In retrospect, it was a good move, these people were bad parents and they fucked up my biological siblings each in their own way. And he was right. I had been “me” my whole life and I sure as hell was not going to change who I was to fit into what they needed me to be.

Briefly though, for a week, I was a part of a family, I had my siblings. The only time in my life I had my siblings and was a part of their lives. I was and I imagine they too were still reeling from our mother’s suicide. I had not had time to absorb it or understand it.

As I was driven away from the little trailer by the lake they lived in, down the long dirt road, I held a little yellow stuffed duck to my chest. A gift from the Easter Bunny. I looked out the window and saw my siblings watch me ride away, dust from the dirt road trailing in our wake. Eventually, they were gone and it was just me, my duck, and the caseworker.

Sitting back I looked out the window and watched the trees, thick and green, fly by and I saw the shadow of the car as it followed alongside us. I watched as it turned into a panther, loping alongside the car. It was black as the darkest night and when it turned toward the car, never missing a step as it passed through the trees, I understood that it would never leave me. The darkness, whatever shape it took, it would get closer and closer until it overcame me and then became me.

There was a sense of peace and normalcy to my being taken to a new foster home and to my companion that had always been with me now showing itself to me. I withdrew into myself and let the world fall away until only me and the darkness remained with the faint sound of the waves and cries of the lost lulling me to sleep.

*My paternal biological sister said she believed my paternal deadbeat dad might have killed her. She was found not far from his shop. I remember people thinking she was killed. But they decided to just call it a suicide. Either way, she is dead so no changing that.