I was born normal. I was a happy child. And that made mother happy. And my brother happy. It made my sister happy. Even my father was happy. I wasn't supposed to get sick. It was supposed to be different. I was supposed to be one of high status, not where I am…was.
Oceans apart day after day
And I slowly go insane
I hear your voice on the line
but it doesn't stop the pain
The sickness was bad. Not even the best of doctors could heal me. They said there was no hope. They said that I was to die. Father moved on to his duties. My sister moved on to whatever it was that my sister did. But my brother and mother would not give up hope. They stood by my cradle throughout each day and every night. Everyone knew it was useless. They all shook their heads sadly when they saw Mother carrying me through the halls of our home, my brother quietly walking a few steps behind her. One day I woke, crying for my mother. Mother rushed in to find that my fever had broken and the sickness was gone. There was much rejoicing and celebrating, but there was something off about me. It took my mother and everyone else to long to figure out what it was. I was deaf.
Wherever you go, whatever you do
I will be right here waiting for you
whatever it takes or how my heart breaks
I will be right here waiting for you
Suddenly, I wasn't the strong daughter my father was so proud of. Nor was I the attention stealing sister my jealoussister was annoyed at. But my mother still loved me. And my brother was still always there for me.
The years passed, and I grew like a normal child. I played with my siblings in the light of the sun. With the help of my brother, I learned to read. Shortly after that, I learned to write. But life isn't the calm river everyone wants it to be. There will always be the currants and the rapids. There will always be the boulders and shallow waters. A few weeks after my sixth birthday, my mother died. I wasn't the only one devastated by my Mothers death. My brother was lost without our mother's guidance and support. The support that no one else could give him. He didn't know that he'd left me in the dark. He didn't know that he was hurting the one that he loved. The one that loves him. My brother never found his way back to me. At least not in the way I was hoping for.
I took for granted all the times
That I thought would last somehow
I hear the laughter, I taste the tears
But I can't get near you now
I was always very patient. That was one of the reasons my brother and I got along so well. He was very impatient. I was not quick to judge. I let him tell me about his problems and worries and thoughts (using our special communication system). I gave him advice and he was my best friend. My only friend. Watching him in pain was hard for me. I tried to reach out for him, but he never saw my hand. When the door closed, he was on the other side, and it was too late to save him. He would need to find the path himself. I sat and waited for him…even after he disappeared from our home.
Wherever you go, whatever you do
I will be right here waiting for you
whatever it takes or how my heart breaks
I will be right here waiting for you
It was a few weeks before his thirteenth birthday. He was gone. Never at meals. Not in the courtyard. His room was cleared out. I didn't know what happened to my brother. Mother and he were the only ones who knew how to communicate with me. I was left in a world where everything was blurry and unclear. I still waited. I was never one to give up hope.
I had no way to pass time after my brother left. I wandered the halls of my home, going wherever my feet took me. One day, I discovered something that would change my life. The room looked as if no one had been in it for decades. Chairs were scattered around the room and a strange table like object stood in the middle of the room. I cautiously walked towards it. It was made of dark wood and shaped oddly, like a right triangle with a distorted third side. The structure was supported by three wooden legs, one attached to each point of its triangle-like shape. I walked closer. The shorter straight side curved in and then back out, like a ledge. In a straight row on that ledge, black and white prisms stretch from one side to the other. I reached out and pressed on one of the white ones. Nothing happened. I tried another and another. I tried black ones and the right-most one. And then I tried the left-most one. A weird feeling came over me. It was like something within me was shaking. Each day I returned to this room. And over time, I taught myself to hear, just not in the way most people hear. By feeling the vibrations, I could listen to what people were saying and understand it. Suddenly, there were so many new paths I could get lost on.
Wherever you go, whatever you do
I will be right here waiting for you
whatever it takes or how my heart breaks
I will be right here waiting for you
Anyone want to guess what the 'weird table-like structure' is? The song is 'Right Here Waiting' by Richard Marx. I didn't use the whole song, just bits and pieces of it. Felt like the song fit with what I was trying to say.