I Am Rose Smith

I’m tired; tired of everything. Tired of the fact that I am an orphan, that my parents are no longer alive. Sadness, like a vacuum cleaner sucks everything clean in my life. Even my soul seems to have departed. As I live each dreadful day, I wistfully hope that I would miraculously be my old self again. I’ve tried fruitlessly for months- it’s not as easy as learning your ABC.
In the scorching, hot weather, people out on the streets dress lightly, enjoying their ice creams and cold drinks. Me? I’m wearing three layers of jumpers, wrapped in a woollen blanket yet still shivering. My sallow skin is engraved to my skeletal frame and has marked deep encirclements of purple under my eyes.
It’s as though there is a strong gust of wind pushing me back every step that I take and I can’t resist it because it is just too strong for me. I’d give anything to not feel like this… to be this way. To feel empty; lifeless.
8/3/08.
It’s exactly a year after the Garuda 737 crash. What if my parents never decided to holiday in Indonesia? Or if the pilot had just slowed down at the landing? Would they be alive right now? Or would fate find another way to take them away?
I’ve never considered the possibility for my parents to die and leave me alone; defenseless. I stubbornly believed that they will be alive forever. I was struggling to cope with my identity ever since- no longer having the qualities that had once been Rose Smith. ‘Move on’ they all say. Two simple words yet so hard to accomplish.
I traced my finger along the edge of that photograph. Happy. It’s so foreign to me now. It has been so long since I had felt that way. The girl standing in front of my parents, with dimpled cheeks and a smile that lit up the world used to be me- living without a care in the world.
With teary eyes I looked up to meet my foster mother.
“I want to be her again,” I cried as I pointed at the girl in the photograph.
“Of course you can honey, because you ARE her,” she reassured. “You were born as Rose Smith and forever shall be her. Nobody can take that away from you.”
I stared back at the photo mesmerizing my parents’ smiling faces for the last time.
I am Rose Smith, I’m unique, there’s nobody quite like me.
The words that were spoken by foster mother are still etched in my mind ‘You were born as Rose Smith and forever shall be her. Nobody can take that away from you.’
I will always remember this sentence as these words that have made me widen my tunnel vision of a world of upsetting memories.
I am finally free of sadness’ deathly grip. There is no longer a gust of wind pushing me back, just a clear sunny pathway for me to continue life.

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