by Andrew Freyne

Created on: August 13, 2009

As I sit in my leather armchair my thoughts are calm and yet I am constantly focusing on what they are telling me! It's Friday night and here I am, alone, anxious and imprisoned by my constant recollections of days of old! It's dark except for the reading lamp that sits on my right hand side. On my knee I have a book open but they are just empty words, I cannot focus on them, I have forgotten what the book is about! What is happening to me? What has happened to me? I hear the voices outside, the sounds of laughter, the sounds of companionship, the sounds of possibly a family enjoying a night out on the town! That one word, family! This one word has caused me so much pain, so much heartache! So many tears have flowed down my cheeks as I meditate on the concept of family!

I guess I used to have a family once; mother, father, a brother! Then, that treacherous demon known as cancer, it took my mother away, I felt confused! The words, 'Andrew, I'm sorry to have to tell you, your father collapsed this afternoon at 3.45pm as a result of a heart attack!' filled my mind with horror! I was devastated! 'Oh brother!' 'How you disappeared without a word!' 'Why?' 'What reason?' I was a dead man walking! Sudden turmoil! Sudden change! I was unprepared. They say a family is supposed to be about love and support! Well, what is that? I don't know what that is? I was never close to my family. Rain slowly starts to tap, tap tap on the window behind me, I suddenly focus on present reality, but only for a brief spell! I close my eyes and continue to ponder! I reflect on my childhood years! Did I ever smile? Vague pictures spring to mind! Constant arguments, items of furniture being thrown across the room! Mother almost pulling my arm out of my socket as she dragged me away and visited her friend! Her friend! Her friend's eldest son! I wipe the tear away that has just begun to flow down my right cheek! Why did she take me there? Is this what family is? Surely not! There the small child sits, alone; I'm looking at myself from above. We are at my mother's friend's house; I'm with her eldest son. In the blink of an eye he picks me up and tosses me onto the sofa like a rag doll, he kicks me, he punches me! Horrible, horrible pictures! This is childhood, this is my childhood! I'm still looking at myself from above! Then come the dirty things! The dirty things he made me do! I open my eyes and end this thought! This is abuse plain and simple!

Yes, I had a family once! Now I live alone! No wife! No love! No warmth! No companionship! My only friend, my only solace comes from what I'm doing now! Sitting on my own, reading, reflecting, listening to the sounds of the world outside!

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