A promise that kills

It was suppose to be forever, it was suppose to give me faith in tomorrow and faith in people, it was a promise made to make life better, to cut the pain off until you went and broke it. It wasn't like you were breaking a promise about going fishing next weekend, being able to travel to Mexico in the summer, or a promise to read to me before I go to bed. No, it was a promise that made me have faith in you, faith in family, faith in love. What is faith?

I promise I will stay home, never go back and fight. The words are still ringing in my ears and everytime I look at you I start to cry because I know in my heart you will not return. All my life you were gone, the only time I saw you was when we had to drop you off at the airport. It didn't get any easier as the years past I just had the ability to block out all the pain. I started to forget your were my father and thought that parents no longer exist but just parent.

It got worse the more you were gone, the more I forgot who you were. When you came home for a birthday or holiday it seemed as though we were strangers. I didn't talk to you and I stopped hugging you at the airport because it felt different. Things got really bad when you called and said that you were not comming home due to someone blowing up your hotel and now you are on the run. I was a little girl then, I didn't cry or scream, I just sat there listening to the phone have a dead end and my eyes filled of memories. You were my rock to my life. I played sports for you because no one else in the family cared or would come and watch my games. I got a 4.0 GPA so that I could prove to you that I was a good kid but you were never around to see my grades. I needed you but you were never there. You were the only one in the family who understood me and knew that I was secretly lost in the world but to everyone else I was the popular, perfect, happy child.

It all changed one rainy night when I was driving home, I followed the speed limit yet the guy who didn't ran head on to me. I stopped breathing and lay in the middle of the road, rain falling on my face waiting for someone to save me. I was brought back to life and told I had only a few days to live, you promised to come home that day but you didn't. You just made them take another year off your contract. I fought everyday and soon I got better and than things hit rock bottom. I got sick again and the doctor flew me to a bigger place with more doctors and I was rushed into a dark room, I woke up and you were not there. I needed you more than anything and when the Doctor told mom I had a year left now you came running home. It was not becasue you were scared of me dying it was because one of the other men who fought beside you, told you to go home and told you of story that made you want to come home. You promised that day, at my bedside you would stay home forever. A year came and went and I was finally okay against all odds and I got to know my father. It was no longer odd to see you at my house, or to have you help me with my homework or take me hunting because I finally saw you as my father.

The phone rang, you picked it up. Life stopped as we knew it. You told me that you had to go and break one little promise when it was the only promise I needed to keep living. You said you were going back to fight and you would not be home because you had to be gone for three years. The years were I would head to college, i would play varsity sports, I would attend my last prom, I would get my heart broken by a boy and you were telling me you were leaving. I told you that if you left, you would never be able to come back into my life and that I would no longer see you as my father.

I never went with my family to the airport, I never said goodbye, I never told you that I really did love you. It was over. As I got ready to graduate, I walked down and smiled in front of all the parents and than I saw my mother's face. Her face was dark red and her eyes were full of water, it was not me and I knew that. I walked off the stage and ran to my mother and said that nothing was wrong and to smile it was my day. Later that night when everything was calm and silent my mother told me that my father's hotel was blown up and he was in it, he died at 2:30. I walked across the stage at 2:40 and graduated. How could you lie to me? How could you break one promise? How could you make it seem like it was a small promise. Now I put all the blame on me and feel like I don't belong here because I never said goodbye and told you, you could never come home and now you cannot.

When does things get better and I can smile again.