A./N.: I reposted this, due to formating problems. I'm also thinking about doing a second part to this with chapters about what she still is. Please leave a review and tell me what you think.

Proper Name

Orphan

I have lost my mother very early in life. From the moment I heard the news from Father I felt lost. Mother was gone … she had left me … she would never come back to us. At first my mind had been unable to comprehend what that meant. Numb – that is the word for how I felt. My father had been a doctor and I had seen a lot of patients come through the doors of his office, in various conditions and various states of health. Yet I had been utterly unprepared to face the death of either of my own parents. This cut deeper than anything I had ever seen, experienced, felt before. Slowly my eyes filled with tears and I was surprised to feel the wet sting of them pouring down my cheeks.

Before I could ask Father for more details, for some small measure of comfort, I felt a tiny hand clasp my nightgown. I have to admit that I dreaded looking down. Nevertheless I couldn't not. As predicted, I was met by the round-eyed, innocent face of my youngest brother. David tugged at my nightgown again and asked the fatal question.

"Is the baby here yet?" He sounded so eager to see our new sibling that it broke my heart cleanly in two … "When can we go see mummy?" … and shattered it into a million pieces.

oOoOoOo

In a way we lost our father that day, too. He withdrew deeply inside himself and more often than not was unable to look us children in the eyes for fear of seeing the ghost of his late wife staring back at him through our eyes. We became a source of grief to him and we felt it every single day.

oOoOoOo

Orphan. That is what they called us from then on. Orphan. How I hated that word! Every time we heard it Michael and David seemed to cringe away, to shrink. I, though, felt my hackles rise every time I was addressed as a 'poor little orphan' – no matter how accurate it was to describe our situation. I loathed that name, but it was a name I had to bear … and with time it became part of me.