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Impermanence

Death has ravaged me from day one.

First, it was my mom walking into that abortion clinic with the 60 dollars my dad gave her clenched in her sweaty hand. The other fingers wrapped around a cigarette smoked to the bone.

I don’t know who talked her out of it, but she came back out 60 dollars richer and I live to tell this story.

This was in 1976 and as I close in on my 45th birthday I look back and see how death has continued to play its whack-a-mole game permeating everyone and everything close to me.

I sit here fortunate to have two children after my own abortion at 16 and the later suicide of my baby’s father.

I look at my mother and how that man giving her the money to kill the child they had created in a drug and alcohol-induced haze tore her up inside. Her self-esteem suffered and she wondered, am I not good enough to have his baby? Will anyone ever really love me?

The baby daddy went off to prison and my mom marked my birth certificate as, “father unknown.” He doesn’t want to be a part of it, then he doesn’t have to be a part of it. The wall went up and she dove into bars to find other men that may fit the bill.