Damon’s Childhood Part 3: Drifting Apart

It was almost midday and I was still lying on my bed thinking about what is going on, but suddenly I heard someone knocking in my door so I got up and opened the door.

It was my little sister she said, "Dad, told me to wake you up and to tell you to get dressed up because we are going somewhere"

So I picked anything random from my wardrobe without giving it much thought then I went downstairs quickly.

When I saw that my father, mother, and even little sister we're wearing black I was freaked out but this didn't last long because of what happened soon after...

When my mother's gaze fell on me as she saw me wearing bright colored clothes, her expression changed drastically as if she was disgusted by me then she told me off saying,

"hurry back to your room and change to something black!"

On hearing that the sadness overwhelmed me, my head was dangling downwards as I was going upstairs to change my clothes.

That was when my relationship with mother was cracked, unfortunately that crack wasn't mended, on contrary the crack got wider and deeper drifting us apart as the time passed.

Since we got in the car and started moving, we were unusually quiet, so I tried to initiate a conversation to liven up the things so I asked my father about our destination but he didn't answer me and kept on driving, my attempt ended up in failure and the silence continued throughout the whole trip.

I still hadn't gotten over what happened between me and my mother back at our home, I kept thinking about what could I have done wrong that made my mother angry at me like that, little did I know that something even more shocking is waiting for me at our destination.

When we arrived I saw many adults wearing black suits and dresses going into a building, then I found out that it was my grandparent's funeral.

As I saw their picture with a black ribbon on their picture, tears started flowing without any reason, I didn't know why but for some reason I felt guilty as I was standing in front of their pictures praying for them.

When my mother's turn came to pray she wept and cried a lot as she was bowing for them saying,

"I am sorry"

"I am sorry"

"It was my fault"

It was the first time of my life I saw my own mother crying that much, she was being too apologetic towards my grandparents that all the attendants were looking at her in astonishment

Two of the attendants were talking about how they died, I was curious so I stood near them to eavesdrop.

" Do you know how they died, I heard that they were healthy?" one of them said that.

"I heard that their house caught fire and they were burned to death," the other one said that.

"Do you know what caused the fire?" the former one said that.

Then my father came and plugged my ears with his hands in order to not listen to them then he took me away.

I felt that my father was hiding something from me but at that time I couldn't have guessed what it was.

After we were done with the funeral and all guests had left, we went back home, the trip back was full of silence as well no one could utter a word till we got back.

Since that day and I felt that mother kept a distance from me, she would even drag my sister away from me whenever she saw us playing together, I tried many times to make up with her but it was to no avail.

While my mother was neglecting me, my father treated me like normal but he even took extra care of me sometimes.

I noticed that my father and mother were arguing more often, but I didn't know the reason behind it, all that I could do is to pray that this would pass and everything would get back to normal.

Unfortunately, this summer vacation didn't end up as expected.