A Piece of Fate

I used to think that my life as a child growing up was providential. Looking back, now I am not so sure. According to my parents, I was born in the bayous of Louisiana. A diversion to hide the truth, I suppose. Mother never shared much about her parent’s and the past, only that they died in a fishing boat accident off the gulf coast of Texas, leaving mother at the age of eighteen. She found herself homeless and pregnant with me. The death of her parents from the explosion, left the shrimp boat company bankrupt and her penniless.

Succumbed to digging in trash cans for food and searching water fountains to fill up used plastic bottles, she knew she had to figure a way through this terrible time. A month before her parents died; an arrangement had been made against her will, where she would be sent to a home for pregnant unwed mothers. However, my mother turned eighteen a week before the tragedy and as a legal adult, new factors fell into play. She would not be a warden of the state; therefore, she could not be forced to live in the maternity home for girls. On the other hand, it left her homeless with an unborn child. The alternate was not an option. Giving up her baby would be like giving up a part of herself, and she didn’t choose that. She would rather die than give up her child to a perfect stranger. She fought long and hard with her parents on the subject which resulted in blackmail. Now, no longer a problem.

One summer night when the wind blew fierce and rain hammered down on the city of New Orleans, my mother sought shelter from the storm. However, each building she approached, was boarded up, with cars abandoned along streets and tree branches scattered across the roads. As the wind increased panic set in, and she darted across the street without looking; consequently being struck by a passing car. We were rushed to emergency, where doctors said we wouldn’t survive. That night, I was born in the middle of a hurricane or, so the story goes.

Just another stack of lies compounded upon other lies; secrets well-hidden and out of view for years, until one cold day in November. That’s when piece by piece the life of my fate would unfold. It was this day, my real life started, and the providential life died.