Mistake

I know this is the third story I've posted, but this one is finished. Well, close to finished. Just a little editing, most likely.

Dedicated to my friend whose name will not be given; she died of Laryngeal Cancer. She thought that no one loved her, and so she started smoking. It gave her the cancer, and she died September 11, 2001. She died right before the Twin Towers accident. And one of the many people who died on 9/11 because of that was her mother.

It is true, how awfully fake it sounds. To learn more about Laryngeal Cancer go to:

http://www.entnet.org/healthinfo/throat ... Cancer.cfm

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_____My talent was singing. I’ve always loved it. My foster parents would sit with me as we watched vidoes they had filmed of me singing when I was seven. Yea, my foster parents. You see, when my mother got pregnant she didn’t know how. She didn’t know who the father was, how she had done anything, and she knew right from the beginning that I was a mistake. Just a small error in her life that could be fixed. And she could go on living happily, pretending I never existed. Maybe she wouldn’t have done that if she had known the rest of my life would be a mistake.

I’m not sure how I feel about remembering the orphanage. I was there for the first five years of my life. People say orphanages are horrible. I guess, from my point of view, they are home. Helen and Jack, “Mom and Dad”, didn’t adopt me because they came into the orphanage, saw me, and thought “Why, what a beautiful little girl! So sweet and gentle; she’s perfect for us.”. No, they never met me. They had asked for a boy. They didn’t care which one, just a boy around five or six.

Weren’t they surprised when they found me on their doorstep.

I knew something was wrong. They acted happy around me, but that was just it: an act. I could tell they were forcing their smiles and laughs. Taking millions of pictures of me because they wanted to love me. But I was a girl. I was a mistake.

I started singing because it was the only thing that brought me happiness. I could change all my feelings by singing different things. And I did it all the time. In the morning I sang while getting dressed, and eating breakfast. Sitting in the bath tub I would let me voice ring out and bounce back to me. And at night I stared at the moon and sang until I fell asleep.

I guess that’s why I made chorus when I was 11. My voice had evolved, changed, over the years. I was better than anyone else in chorus. And I kept at it too.

Sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grade. I sang and sang and sang and never tired of it.

Until I got Laryngeal Cancer. It effects the voice box. I didn’t notice it at first. I just thought I had a cold, and my voice was cracking. But it got worse, and I definitely didn’t have a cold.

I can still feel a small bit of the horror I felt coming home that day. The doctor had told me I had Laryngeal Cancer. When I gave him a weird look he explained that it is a disease that attacks the voice box, and can cause you to go mute. Many people have died because of it.

In the car I just stared out the window, everything passing by me in blurs. All I can remember is Helen’s attempt at a comforting voice saying meanless words to me, and Jack’s smile, plastered on his face. I would have given anything to smack it off. They did not care; they did not cry and hug me, wondering if I was going to die. They did not think of how I was feeling, they didn’t even think of my singing.

By this time (I’m fifteen now) I am sitting in a dull white bed, writing down the small life I had. The mistake I was. At first I blamed God. He had given me life, and then gave me something to enjoy, letting it pull at my heart until I loved it with every ounce of my soul. And then he took it away. But now I realize it is not his fault.

It is my own.

The doctors say I have a month to live. I cannot talk at all any more. I was offered several free tutors to help me learn sign language, but I declined. What was the point if I’m going die?

No, I’m dead already.

Singing was my life, and now it has vanished from my sight.

I hope, I pray, that I die in my sleep tonight. So then the angels can take me up to heaven and I will have my voice, and I will sing the broken song that was once my life.

Because I am, of course, a mistake.