| Remembering pains from the heart I remember Tory’s birth. It hurt Elle to no end; eight hours of labor. Eee. I was with her the entire time. I couldn’t leave her in her hours of need! Though I couldn’t bear to watch the birth of my first born, I stayed and concentrated on comforting Elle. She was in a lot of pain; I could see, hear and feel that, as she proceeded in hurting my hand that I was holding hers with. Now I feel like I had turned my back on Tory, but I learned to deal with it and I had watched my twins and my youngest being born. I felt I owed it to myself. The thing is, is that I had more than my five children… The others….they are the pain of my heart. After Tory, precisely two years after, Tamara was expected. I was the happiest father in the world. My second child, my second daughter. Everything was fine right up till eight months of pregnancy…then all hell broke loose. Elle was having contractions, serious ones. I rushed her to the hospital and we went right into her operating room. Elle was having serious complication and Dr. Kavorkian had to remove Tammy by surgery. Hours later, my baby girl died. Her heart couldn’t handle the stress. I blame it on myself! If it weren’t for the god-forsaken powers of mine, all my children could have lived!! Well, I was with Tamara the whole time Elle had to rest up and recuperate, exhausted from the whole ordeal. I stood over Tammy, with her little hand on my pointer finger. She was so precious. She was so beautiful, like her mother. I had named her against the doc’s and my wife’s permission. I just had to give Tammy personality, even though her life was as long as ice cream out of the freezer. I looked down at her and carefully made sure I’d never forget her, ever. She was a soft, peach-fuzz yellow with a cute little electric pink cat nose. Her bones were frail and thin under the baby fat. Her ears were perfect, soft and flexible, the insides baby pink. Her tail was as long as she was, roughly a foot, and it too was soft and fuzzy. I swear she was as soft as a cloud; her fur was there, but so soft to the touch it was like it was air. Her hair on her head was a single tuft and it was brown with gold highlights; it was my color, but shined as her mother’s. It too was soft and silky. It was curled once to her forehead like the way her mother’s did. Since her untimely birth Tammy had not made a single noise and barely ever moved. She didn’t even open her eyes. I had a thing about that. During my daughter’s final hour of life I wondered what her eye color was and I had wanted her to see her father for the first, and last, time in her life, before she went. I placed my hands on either side of her beautiful face and as gently as I could drew her eyelids up. She looked blindly nowhere. I said, “Tammy? Look at me. Look at Daddy.” Slowly, her eyes looked at me and I think even focused. They were the most beautiful hazel and her pupils were large. I smiled and to my great joy and surprise, she “c’hoo”-ed. My smile widened to reveal my teeth, but quickly faded into a frown as her strength drained from her and she went limp. “Tammy? Tammy?!! No, you can’t go, I want to do so much with you! You and your sister!” It was too late. She was gone. I scooped her up and held her to me for the longest time. Dr. Kavorkian came in and saw me crying and gripping Tammy tight to me. She laid a hand on my shoulder. “What do you want to do with the body?” I yelled, infuriated with her term for my daughter, “I’m bringing Tammy home with me! She’s coming home!” I drove my wife and children home to our bayside home in the bad part of town. I let Elle take Tory indoors while I went directly to lay Tammy down on my bed. Elle and I had gotten Tammy her own dress. It was beautiful, just like her. It was pink and red with white lace around the neck, sleeves, and at the bottom of the dress. It had red bows in the back at the waist and a little on at the neck. I dressed my daughter in her dress and held her. Elle walked into our bedroom, where I was, and came up behind me, cuddling up to my back. “Elmo, it’s too late for her. You’ll have to let go.” “I don’t want to!!” “You have to, dear. For her sake as well as your own!” “Lemme just hold on to her for a while! Please, Elle?!” “For a little while,” She walked out of the room and I stayed with Tammy. Late that night I retreated to the couch and held Tammy through the night, comforting her. I fell asleep with her on my chest and awoke the same when Elle came and shook my shoulder. I couldn’t determine what she was saying, but she seemed perturbed and upset. I sat up with my baby and listened to nothing while she gave a tirade. The next thing I heard was she saying, “You can’t live like this, Elmo. You have to let go.” She had sat down at some point and said that to me, with a hand on my shoulder. I had slowly nodded and went to my lab to set to work preparing to say good-bye. I made her a little coffin and then proceeded to do the same to a slab on stone. I used my lazer to inscribe words into it. Sunset was upon us and it was a red and blue sky when Elle with Tory and I, with Tammy went outside and faced my baby’s grave toward the water and the sunset, the summer sun already down. After I laid my darling Tammy, in her box, in her grave and replaced the moved earth I cried and sank to my knees my hands fell upon the earth on either side of her resting spot. Elle and Tory went inside and I cried well into the depths of night at my daughter’s grave. The stars were out and shinning very brightly. I felt as if she was looking down at me from the depths of space. I felt I was being watched from above and there was nothing left for me in the earth. I turned over and stared at the wide sky, still sobbing. Somehow, I saw Tammy up in the sky smiling down at me. She was happy and she was healthy. She said that I shouldn’t be sad that she was happy to have known me. She said that I should be happy and that she’d come visit when the time was right. She and I had a long conversation, though I don’t remember what of, then I saw a light and heard another voice. Tammy was still there when the voice got louder and came from right next to me. “Elmo! Come inside now dear! It’s one in the morning!” Elle didn’t say that in anger or contempt, but of worry. I rolled over onto my stomach to read the inscription on Tammy’s resting spot; her bed….of flowers?? I made a mental note to ask Reggie for geraniums for Tammy. I read the inscription, quietly, to myself, but Elle heard as well: “Tammy Phosphorus Sputterspark. August 13, 1995. With love for my hazel eyed, brown haired beauty, whose cream yellow fur is as soft as clouds.” “My god, Elmo, that is so touching,” Elle sat down with me, in her nightgown and bathrobe and we both stared and the rock. I smiled at the memory that not so long ago happened. I got up and looked down at Elle and the rock. She looked up at me and could tell that I was better, but have been better in the past. I helped my darling wife up and we walked indoors and to bed, hand in hand. I felt that Tammy never left, but she wasn’t there, physically. I felt her love and kindness and it stayed with me, making me stronger. Two years later Elle and I were expecting again. I thought of nothing but Tammy for the longest time during my darling’s pregnancy. Then the fateful day came, when my twins were expected! I was the happiest father in the world, I didn’t think anything bad could happen this time! I was wrong. Unfortunately, Dr. Kavorkian was out sick with the flu when my twins were being born. We had a different doctor; Dr. Cheimlich. I say that with such disgust! What a horrible being! But I got my revenge. He wouldn’t let me be with my darling wife during her hours of need, and I think that would have made all the difference!! It might have been my imagination; I thought I heard screams. I was so worried that I went in against their wishes. But to my surprise, no one was there!! I went looking in all the other rooms joining that one and there was no sign of anyone. Finally, after I half drove myself deeper into insanity, some doctor came up to me and told me that they relocated. I rushed to where he said they were and found my wife unconscious. She didn’t look too happy in any case; I suspected the worse. Elle didn’t look too good and I was worried about my love, but I also need to know where my newborn child was. I went to look for it but when I was in progress, being I no stranger to this hospital; this my third visit, a nurse familiar to me came up to me and directed me elsewhere. There, in a room all by themselves, were my children; twins!!! They were both hooked up to respirators, both looked like me, as opposed to Elle. I was happy, but sad at the same time. Money was scarce for my wife and I and we already had a baby daughter to take care of and feed. My choice in life now was to choose who was to live and who was to die. I was devastated. I had promised that I wouldn’t steel anymore, but this was a life or death situation!!! Upon seeing my two precious sons I knew that I had to keep them both! I set out to help them but there was no way I’d be able to get enough money fund raising in time! I resorted to grand larceny, but by the time I came back my babies were gone! They weren’t in the room and it appeared that they never were!! I found myself at Elle’s side and she was talking with me. She was saying something, but I only picked up, “I had to choose! They said they’d pull the plug on both if I didn’t decide!! I had asked which of them was stronger and so, they kinda chose…” I started to cry. I was late by three minutes. I just collapsed and cried. There was nothing I could have done otherwise but that, and I did that for the longest time. Then I thought about whose fault it was and then I got mad. Furious, I went in search of my son’s killer. There he was over both my children, one ghostly white now, the other, being toyed with… I lunged at him. When he turned around to “congratulate me” I saw him smiling these weasely smile and then I electrocuted him. I admit it. I wrapped my hands around his neck and electrocuted him as I strangled him to death. After his body fell limply, I rushed over to my son’s and held the living one. I wrapped him in a soft cuddly blanket because he wasn’t and he was crying and then I stared at my other. No tears came, but I couldn’t do anything but stare…for the longest time. How horrible that there was a worse killer, than myself. But he was gone now and others’ children would be safe. I felt good about killing the doctor, but horrible at what he did. My wife came in, in a wheelchair and saw the scene. “Elmo, are you…” I couldn’t catch the rest. I was still staring at my son…Tucker. Timison, in my arms, was still crying and I loved his woes away. I told Elle to tell someone that we couldn’t stay here and risk medical neglect for Timison. They didn’t understand until Elle told her story. When Dr. Cheimlich took her into the emergency room to give birth he tortured her and when he was finished he listened to her agony of giving birth to twins without giving her any painkillers at all. Just before I ran in he moved her to another room from an adjoining door and beat her unconscious. That’s why it was dead quiet when I went in. In an inappropriate room, he removed Tucker and Timison and put them in life support, as a doctor should. After I saw them and was told to make a choice and left to give them option C, Dr. Cheimlich told Elle to quickly make the choice or else he’d kill them both and he’d kill one if she told anyone of his abuse of his doctorial license. Then the choice came, Elle called it and said the least likely to live would die. She was in NO condition to tell him a different option. He waited till he heard of me coming back to do the job, fully knowing that I could give him another option. So when I confronted him he was going to be smug and give me the same threat he gave my wife, but didn’t suspect that I’d kill him before he uttered a word. The other doctors and nurses that listened to our story were very pleased that he was dead because of the threats he told them. But nothing could bring back my perfectly healthy baby boy, Tucker. I took him home and buried him next to his older sister Tammy, to the left of her. His stone read: Tucker Indigo December 4, 1997 Whom died needlessly and brutally, but is still eternally loved. Four years later we were expecting another set of twins; and this time no one but Dr. Kavorkian would even go near my Elle!!! Or my babies!!! And this was the first time everything went off without a hitch. Tory was there to help too. She grew up to be eight years old when Thomas and Emilia were born. The new twins looked like their beautiful mother. Thomas had brown hair like mine and brown eyes like his mother and his fur was a darker yellow than his fraternal sister or his mother’s for some reason or another. Emilia had absolutely gorgeous blue eyes, like my one blue eye and had soft light colored fur. Gorgeous; both of them, perfect in every way. The six of us lived happily and wholly for four more years till my dearest darling was expecting again. Used to disappointment, I wasn’t too surprised when Dr. Kavorkian told us that our newborn had the same complexity as Tammy. I let go right away and concentrated in comforting Elle. Tory, now twelve and understood life and death and birth from us, experience and from school, went to see the baby. We told her not to get attached because we couldn’t keep her. It was the way of the world for the poor thing not to live. That’s one reason why it didn’t survive; it had no defined sex. Well, what else would happen due to the genetic mixing of a cat and a rat?? It was a miracle Elle and I ever had any kids at all!!! We all went home, Tory carrying the baby that she named Piper (it was sweet, but I think it hurt her to loose Piper) and we buried it next to Tucker. Timison was curious about the others and wondered what they were all these years. Elle and I told the stories of the “standing rocks in the back yard” to our children and they were astounded. Astounded to learn of their lost sister and brother. Timison now thinks of himself special just because he had a twin and lived as opposed to Tucker. I think it’s cruel. Heh, it’s funny. I never used to be able to keep track of time, no matter what it was whether it was minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years. But now I do just because I have kids who need to be fed a such and such a time, go to school at this time, they come home at this time, we eat dinner at such a time, and my life felt whole and very complete. There was the occasional sibling argument, but that’s to be expected. The best we could do was just love them all and all the same. But certain connections happen between an exclusive pair, like me and Tory, Thomas and Emilia are inseparable, Elle and I are very close. But Timison… Timison is very much a loner and I hate that! I try and include him but he pushes me away. That makes me very sad and unwanted. For some odd reason he’s always been like that, even when he was in life support in the hospital and a newborn… It was a miracle when in 2009 once again Elle and I were expecting a child! Now I openly admit I am NOT as bad as Negaduck, but Elle really enjoys my company and thus resulting… Candice Candlelight was born. She was odd though. Even as healthy as she was I was fascinated by the fact that she had no tail, like me, but was a cat like her mother, and had two different colored eyes, like me!!! One eye was brown, like her mother’s, and the other was like my blue one!! Ok, so that’s weird enough, but the fact that she’s a blonde is even more interesting!! I have brown hair and Elle has red brown hair!! No gold at all!! From either of us!! Very peculiar! But now we live happily as a family of seven and every day Tory goes out with three flowers to her siblings and lays one for each; all-different kinds. I watch her when she does and it’s sad as well as sweet. Elle sometimes joins me at my side and watches too. It’s easier since we built ourselves a house next to the Audubon Lighthouse in St. Canard. There’s more room for the family and we have better…everything!!! Better lighting, plumbing, heating, room, storage, windows, air conditioning, everything!! So, now a days Elle and I are at home, retired, playing with our grandchildren, even babysitting when the kids need us to and living off what we made when we worked. Life leading up to this was hard; very hard, but we managed and we lived through it and…it was all worth it. End |