Insincerely, Jackson.
One.
You know what's funny? Love. It's so much more than just an emotion. More than a box of chocolates or a night of passion. That four-letter word has the power to change lives. Sometimes for the better, in my case for the worse a majority of the time. This is my interpretation of love, and it's part in making me who I am today.
The first person to ever love me was my mother. She loved me enough to not get an abortion when my biological father walked out on her the second he found out she was pregnant, after taking her virginity on the eve of her seventeenth birthday. She loved me enough to get through her senior year of high school, despite being ridiculed my teachers and students once her belly became impossible to hide. She loved me enough to to endure nineteen hours of labor, alone I might add, due to the fact that her family had abandoned her when, two weeks before my birth, she decided she wouldn't give me up for adoption. She loved me enough to give me a name she deemed strong enough to get me through the trials and tribulations of life, Jackson Storme Thomas, although now it is Jackson Storme Pressley.
Though my mother had an immense amount of love for me, she was the first person to break my heart. At eleven months old, she left me in the elevator of a hospital with a enveloped letter attached to my ankle with a piece of red ribbon. I like to think of it as a tag on a Christmas present. All the information I know about her comes from that letter, which I had memorized at the age of six. I was sick with pneumonia and she had realized she wouldn't be able to raise a child properly with no assistance and a less than minimum wage job. She wanted me to have the life I deserved. I suppose this was her way of showing that she loved me enough to let me go therefor I harbor no hate towards her. I only wish I knew her name. My mother.
For two years, twenty-three months and four days to be exact, I was bounced alone from foster home to foster home. Most of these I do not remember and I didn't accumulate many belongings. All I have are eighteen pathetic excuses as to why each caretaker couldn't keep me. "Too fussy," "Doesn't fit into my schedule," "Just not right for us." A child is not a toy. You can't just return it once you get bored. Some people don't seem to realize that. I never got a chance to experience unconditional parental love. That is, until the Pressley family came along, but even that didn't last. I wasn't the blue-eyed blond-haired bouncy baby boy Cynthia and Randolph Pressley had hoped for, but with a head full of ginger curls and freckles without number, I was close enough.
Going home with them is one of my earliest memories. Randolph was built like a rail, tall and thin, but had a loud booming voice and an even louder laugh. He had a scraggly, auburn beard and pale blue eyes. Cynthia was pale and petite with honey colored curls that flowed down to her mid-back. I remember how her perfect pink lips stood out to me. When she wasn't talked, she had a rather shrill voice, her lips were always pursed. I can't remember her smile. I don't think she ever smiled. Randolph placed me in their car and buckled the gray and blue car seat. Next to me sat their biological daughter, Katheryn. She was 5 years older than me. They told me to call her sissy and to call them Mommy and Daddy. Like a good little boy, I obeyed.
Mother, father, sister, brother. We lived in a white house with dark blue shutters in a gated, suburban community. The lawn was green, Father watered and mowed it regularly. Mother had a vegetable garden on the back porch. The sister could print in manuscript and cursive. The brother ate his vegetables. We even had a dog, a chocolate lab named Hershey. We should have been the perfect family, bright, happy, and loving. But we weren't, not even close.
The mother had a nasty temper, the father smelled of unfamiliar perfume, the sister craved attention, and the brother....the brother just didn't belong.
Insincerely, Jackson.
The first person to ever love me was my mother. She loved me enough to not get an abortion when my biological father walked out on her the second he found out she was pregnant, after taking her virginity on the eve of her seventeenth birthday. She loved me enough to get through her senior year of high school, despite being ridiculed my teachers and students once her belly became impossible to hide. She loved me enough to to endure nineteen hours of labor, alone I might add, due to the fact that her family had abandoned her when, two weeks before my birth, she decided she wouldn't give me up for adoption. She loved me enough to give me a name she deemed strong enough to get me through the trials and tribulations of life, Jackson Storme Thomas, although now it is Jackson Storme Pressley.
Though my mother had an immense amount of love for me, she was the first person to break my heart. At eleven months old, she left me in the elevator of a hospital with a enveloped letter attached to my ankle with a piece of red ribbon. I like to think of it as a tag on a Christmas present. All the information I know about her comes from that letter, which I had memorized at the age of six. I was sick with pneumonia and she had realized she wouldn't be able to raise a child properly with no assistance and a less than minimum wage job. She wanted me to have the life I deserved. I suppose this was her way of showing that she loved me enough to let me go therefor I harbor no hate towards her. I only wish I knew her name. My mother.
For two years, twenty-three months and four days to be exact, I was bounced alone from foster home to foster home. Most of these I do not remember and I didn't accumulate many belongings. All I have are eighteen pathetic excuses as to why each caretaker couldn't keep me. "Too fussy," "Doesn't fit into my schedule," "Just not right for us." A child is not a toy. You can't just return it once you get bored. Some people don't seem to realize that. I never got a chance to experience unconditional parental love. That is, until the Pressley family came along, but even that didn't last. I wasn't the blue-eyed blond-haired bouncy baby boy Cynthia and Randolph Pressley had hoped for, but with a head full of ginger curls and freckles without number, I was close enough.
Going home with them is one of my earliest memories. Randolph was built like a rail, tall and thin, but had a loud booming voice and an even louder laugh. He had a scraggly, auburn beard and pale blue eyes. Cynthia was pale and petite with honey colored curls that flowed down to her mid-back. I remember how her perfect pink lips stood out to me. When she wasn't talked, she had a rather shrill voice, her lips were always pursed. I can't remember her smile. I don't think she ever smiled. Randolph placed me in their car and buckled the gray and blue car seat. Next to me sat their biological daughter, Katheryn. She was 5 years older than me. They told me to call her sissy and to call them Mommy and Daddy. Like a good little boy, I obeyed.
Mother, father, sister, brother. We lived in a white house with dark blue shutters in a gated, suburban community. The lawn was green, Father watered and mowed it regularly. Mother had a vegetable garden on the back porch. The sister could print in manuscript and cursive. The brother ate his vegetables. We even had a dog, a chocolate lab named Hershey. We should have been the perfect family, bright, happy, and loving. But we weren't, not even close.
The mother had a nasty temper, the father smelled of unfamiliar perfume, the sister craved attention, and the brother....the brother just didn't belong.
Insincerely, Jackson.
♠ ♠ ♠
Keep or kill?