A Sneak Peek Into My Past...

This morning I woke up crying. I do the same thing every year around this time, all of my friends do. We were calling each other before sunrise. But how long does it take to heal from past hurts? You would think that I let it go by now, but something are just too hard to let go of. There a 3 major events in my life, that have hurt me deeply. Some people would have broken down over some of the things that I have gone through. I shared one of my tragedies in a post titled (Be Careful What you Wish For)...This is number two. I'm sure I will share the third event sometime in the future...

Blogging has become my self-induced therapy. I blog with a purpose...not for entertainment...I blog to get things off my chest that would I normally not discuss. This may read like a story out of a book for some, but for me, it is another piece of "baggage" that I am letting go of, so that I can go on.. Well, here goes...

It was the summer before freshman year. We were all so excited. We were going to high school and I couldn't wait! We had all worked odd jobs here and there over the summer to save up for the latest fashions, and we were ready! But little did we know that this summer would change us all forever.

I had a very special friend, and Kya was her name. She just loved life in general. Her mother died when she was young, so she spent a lot of time with my family. My house was the house in the neighborhood where all the kids hung out....She was a chubby kid, kinda tall for her age, so she gave the appearance that she was much older. She always wore shirts with sleeves(even in the summer), and her left eye never really moved when much. Some kids at school made fun of her, but she was my friend. She moved to Dallas from a small town near Louisiana. Her father was a single parent, very quiet, and to us, he was mysterious. My father always said that there was something wrong with him, but we just felt like maybe he just missed his wife. We didn't find out the whole story until after IT happened.

Whenever someone would ask her how her mother died, she would get this blank look on her face and say, "She was sick, and NO I don't want to talk about it." So we left it alone. We all hung out on a daily basis, but she started coming around less and less. My mom asked her is everything was okay and she would say smiling, everything is fine. She said, "My dad just needs my help around the house more," so we didn't think anything of it.

I always knew that bad things went on in the world, but never did I think that it would hit so close to home. This quiet, suburban neighborhood where we lived was about to be shaken up a bit. We had all planned to go to this big Back To School Party. We had already gotten our outfits, and we were ready. It was the Friday before school was to begin and we were about to get our first real taste of high school boys for the first time. Looking back, it's kind of funny, but you couldn't tell my ANYTHING back then. We were meeting at my house, and my mom and dad were dropping us off, and picking us up ...Two carloads of us...but they wanted to make sure we got there and back safely. Kya never showed up. I called her house 3 times but there was no answer. So we left.

As we passed by her house, all the lights were out, and since their garage was in the back of the house, we didn't know if they were home or not. I regretted not going over and ringing the doorbell for a long time, but I am pretty sure that it would not have changed anything...

I didn't see or hear from Kya all weekend. We were all worried. My dad even went by their house, but no one came to the door, and he said the house was quiet. We started school that Monday, still no Kya. She was supposed to have two classes with me, but never showed up.

Tuesday morning, my mom went to the police. They were really not concerned at all. They gave her the run around, and eventually showed up Tuesday afternoon. It was only after Kya's father's boss had expressed his concerns to the police, that they finally did something. Her father never missed work, and he was out on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, so they were concerned. The police finally went into the house. What they found was not pretty at all. Kya's father had molested his daughter, killed her, then shot himself. Kya had a younger sister (so we thought), that was away with her aunt for the weekend, so she survived the mishap.

I was in disbelief! I didn't hear any gun shots. How could I have not known that something was wrong with her? I blamed myself for a long time. Not for what he did, but for not being a better friend. After that day, I vowed to be a real friend, to anyone that I chose to invite into my life...Hence the reason I tend to be TOO good to my friends!

To our surprise. It didn't even make the news, newspapers...NOTHING! My parents were outraged! My father set out to find out more about these people, and do something about how our town chose to just overlook the fact that a man had done something like this to his child, and nothing was said about it. I mean, in Texas, EVERYTHING is on the news! He just kept saying it over and over. " My child was in that house... My child has been alone in that house with that man. What if he would have snapped while my child was there?" He found the info that he set out find. He saved all the newspaper clippings. I don't know if it was to remind himself of how lucky he was to have a good family or not. But he seemed to be a different man after that day. Not better or worse, just different.

It turns out that Kya's mother had not just died of some disease as we thought. A few years earlier, when Kya was in the sixth grade, Kya's father had molested her older sister. Her sister was 15 and pregnant with her father's child. She was five months pregnant when she finally revealed who the father of the child was. Kya's mother could not live with this type of shame. Instead of turning her husband into the police, she set her family and herself on fire in the middle of the night. Kya's mother and younger brother died instantly. Her sister, who was very badly burned, delivered the baby 4 months early. She named the baby Miracle. The mother died soon after the baby was born, but the baby survived. All the time I knew Kya, I thought that the baby was her sister. When we would ask about her little sister, she would say, "Oh yeah...She's not at home." Like she forgot that the kid was her sister. We now knew why.

Kya and her father also survived the fire. Kya's father was burned from the neck down. We noticed the burns, but when we asked her how he got them she just said, "I don't know. That happened a long time ago." Kya only had a burn on her left shoulder and halfway down her arm. Hence the reason she always wore sleeves, but she told us it was a birthmark. (That was just like me back then to notice what she wore, rather than what she was covering up. I still have a lot of that trait in me, but I learned a hard lesson, and that is the reason that I am not so vain today).We found out later that she also had a glass eye...the one that never moved much.

I regretted for a long time not getting closer and finding out more about my friend. I was so wrapped up in myself, and boys, like most teenage girls, that I failed to see the signs. It took me a long time to realize it was not my fault. Yesterday would have been her birthday, and my friends and I...The ones who knew her and share in the hurt...got together at my place and had a drink in her memory. RIP Kya...Your memory will remain in our hearts forever...

I really don't have any thought provoking questions today...I'll just say this, take care of the people you care about because things happen unexpectedly. Be careful of the people that you allow your kids(nieces, nephews, cousins, god-kids...etc.) go around. You never know what type of secrets they may be harboring...