16/12/10

Chapter 1

Where it all began…

"Dad, why was mom crying"?He didn't say anything, he just held my hand tighter as we walked down the street, I was 10 at the time , young and stupid, an empty vessel who knew nothing about the world at all. I had been sheltered most my life , my dad was a heart surgeon and my mom before she met my dad was training to become a fashion designer, she was struggling a lot at the time and her break short of came in the form of my dad, they got married just 6 months after they had met, when I was a kid this sounded so sweet to me , like some fairytale story, love at first sight thing but now it's nothing but a load of bull , I mean stay with a guy for the rest of your life? Life is already so dull it doesn't need any more reasons to become duller. After my mom married, my dad she stopped working on her goal , she was happily married and pregnant , she thought her life was complete but she was going to find out soon enough that letting go of something you have been chasing after your whole life just because your thought of a perfect life is your husband and kid, you soon find out that there is more to life that what is plainly in front of us, if you don't work for life it won't work for you. I am their only child and was an over protected brat that they loved so much that they forgot the dangers of hiding me from the real world, people can try their best to hide from the world but the truth is that the world can hide from them , this planet is too small to escape inconveniences.

My dad had become a skilled heart surgeon and his help was required by many of the war torn areas outside of the U.S, his visits to all these countries changed him a lot , the time that I finally saw this change clearly it was too late to do anything about it. We finally got to the train station, I thought we just had to give the bag in my dad's hand to the people in the train station to send somewhere and then leave but that wasn't the case, not this time. My dad gave his luggage to some guy in the train and he took it in and then my dad turned towards me and put his hand on my shoulder, gripping it tightly, it hurt. He opened his mouth and what he was about to say was going to leave a long lasting mark on me, "I am leaving for a little while for work, pray for me and be safe, I am going to board this train now and you leave as soon as I get on it, you can find your way home , it's not that hard, there are going to be harder things than finding your way home in life", he smiled didn't like where this was going, "Take care of yourself and your mother for me…goodbye" Without another word he turned around and got into the train, didn't even look back once, I just stared at his figure ,slowly disappearing, getting covered by the hoards of restless passengers, I could feel the tears filling up my eyes, as the train started to leave I panicked, I froze, my heart started beating really fast, I had no idea what to do, so I ran after the train, I ran for what seemed like just a few minutes and no matter how hard I tried to make my feet go faster, the train just seemed to go farther and farther away, I was screaming and shouting, yelling for my dad and as soon as the train entered the tunnel I was pulled back by a pair of harsh hands, I kicked and screamed but it was no use , he was gone. I finally freed myself from the man's tight grasp and ran in the other direction, I tried to look for the place from where we had entered, hoping that it would also be the place from where I could exit and leave this dreadful place, I was so scared, I remember the people staring at me as I was running, thinking I was lost or just some crazy kid. I bumped into many people and got pushed by many too but I finally found my way out of the train station.

Finding my way home wasn't easy, I was bruised and scared and now that I look back I see how stupid and unaware of the world I was but it was the first time anything like that had happened to me, I was left alone in a place full of strangers, all kinds of people that I had never notice before because I was too busy concentrating about my world that I never really paid attention to the real one, I was too sheltered. The biggest blow that came from this was the fact that my father could just leave me like that , all alone, without anyone to take care of me and just leave, just turn around and leave, he didn't even look back and he was more aware than anyone else that I had never been left alone like that this before but that didn't seem to bother him but now whatever he did to me then , I am extremely grateful for it but sadly it took me and extra 9 years to figure that out. My mom was so upset to see me in that condition but she consoled me and said that my dad was just frustrated, I believed her. I prayed day and night for my dad to come back safely, I had complete fate in God that he would bring my dad back to me but I was greatly disappointed.

After about two months we got a letter from the man my father was working for that he had died in a bomb blast while he was on his way back from the hospital. My life had been turned upside down from that point, I had lost complete faith in God, praying and doing other acts of worship seemed useless to me from then on, I had firmly established the belief that there was no such thing as God and that no one is going to help you in life, you can only help yourself and leave those weaker than you behind in other to survive. My mom didn't take his death very well, she had gone into depression, it started from heavy drinking and ended in rehab , my nannies who used to lock me in my room while they lazed around where the ones who took "care" of me for the next few years. I had lost my old self and was not ready for anyone and anything to fill the gap that those years of pain had created in my heart, my only escape was my love for gymnastics, I trained day and night, I got into the school team and established myself a goal and was ready to go to any lengths to get it because that is how this world functions and if you don't follow the way of the world then you are going to get left far behind.