When I was little I loved the water. I loved the way it felt,like velvet against my skin,I loved the unknown, the magic that lived hidden in its depths. When I was four my Dad took me to the Aquarium. I was amazed by the fish and squished my chubby face against the glass of every tank in awe. But my favorite part was the mermaid show. They had divers preform underwater and swim in fake mermaid tails. I loved every second, I went wild when she came swimming out though. My mom in her green-blue tail smiling at me through the glass and waving at me. I wanted to be just like my mom, a mermaid. I went to day-care and told everyone that my mom was a mermaid! They didn't believe me, but it didn't matter I knew my mom was a real mermaid.
That summer my parents and I went on vacation to Costa Rica. It was magical,with water as blue as the sky and its burning white sand. We spent a lot of time in the hot springs. I loved splashing around in my floaties, pretending to be a mermaid. My Dad had taken to calling me Lorelei after a story his Vater had told him when he was a boy. We laughed and played and Mom showed me how to hold my breath underwater so I could swim without holding my nose. While my dad watched from the shore, braiding vines together. It was a perfect moment.
When we got back my Mom spent days organizing our photos and trinkets from the trip into a scrapbook,so long that she'd wince in pain when moving her stiff neck. She would get headaches too but she waved it off saying it was a strain from working on the scrapbook too long. But then one day she and I were watching The Little Mermaid on the couch, she got up to get a soda. She then collapsed and started spamming, her eyes rolling back into to her head. The whites of her eyes bloodshot.
I screamed for my Dad, he was a doctor,he would know what to do! He came running into the room looked at my mom and then told me to get the phone quickly! I got him the phone as fast as I could and he dialed 911 and spoke to the operator saying words that at the time I didn't understand. Seizure, non-epileptic, medication,etc. I was shaking I was so scared,as the strange men from the ambulance ran into our house. I held my doll and stared as they flashed a light into her eyes. The movie still playing in the background. As they took her away I just wanted my mommy to be okay,she had to be.
Four days later I sitting by her hospital bed. It was scary to see my mommy to be hooked up to so many tubes. I clutched my mermaid doll to my chest, mom had bought it for me at the aquarium,it even looked like her. Brown hair and eyes, with a pretty smile. She couldn't be sick,mermaids can't get sick they're magical. When I asked when mom could come home dad just should his head. Dad hadn't smiled in days,he didn't sleep much either,at night I slept next to him,he hugged me close,in fear he could lose me too. He would cry then,when he thought I was sleeping. The doctors said Mommy wouldn't wake up. She was like sleeping beauty,only dads kiss doesn't work. She died that night from a Brain eating Amoeba, she got it from the hot springs in Costa Rica when water went up her nose.
My mom wasn't a mermaid, I wasn't a mermaid, water cant hurt mermaids but it destroyed my family.
From the day of my Moms funeral onward I hated the water and I knew magic doesn't exist.