The Story of a Boy

The tale I am about to share is about a boy. It is a tale about a boy who is normal in almost every conceivable way save for one important aspect--he had no mother.

No mother you say? How is such a thing possible? How can a person be born, but have no mother? Tis true in this case. This boy never had a mother.

He never felt the loving embrace of mom after a nasty fall or hear her comforting words after a bad day at school. He never created a drawing for her on Mother's Day nor did he save his pennies so he could buy her a nice birthday gift. She was not there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, his birthday, or any holiday. She was not there for his highs or for his lows. The spot reserved in all boys hearts for their mother was vacant in his for he had no mother.

The curious case of the motherless boy begins in the spring of 1977. The boy is born to parents of middle class backgrounds. Both were educated, hard working people who displayed artistic talent. But only one was selfless. Only one would understand and embrace the responsibility of parenthood. It was not She.

Less than two years after the berth of the boy, the couple would divorce with the boy temporally left in the care of the woman who gave berth to him. But within a short time, the woman who gave the boy life would threaten to give the child up for adoption if the father did not take the boy. The father did what he knew he had to do--take the child and raise the boy himself.

And that he did, but not without much assistance from his father. The grandfather of the boy would be there for both the father and son, through thick and through thin. But it was not a great burden for he lived his life in service to his family. When the father would later fall ill, it would be the 70 year-old grandfather who would lay on the floor next to his son so he could take care of his boy. Men of such extraordinary quality as he are the rarest of species.

The boy would grow to love and revere his father and grandfather, but not without many, many years of struggle. The father in particular would deal with the emotional wreckage that the absence of the boy's birth mother would cause. Anger, hurt, intense self doubt, confusion...these feelings would beget emotional outbursts that lead to physical confrontations at school and home.

The boy fought not only other children, but the pain that he felt deep inside him. He knew not why he felt so, just that he had always had these feelings. "Why do I feel this way?" he would ask himself.Why did he always feel so angry, so bitter, so worthless?

The father was equally perplexed, but for a different reason. He simply was at wit's end at how to control the uncontrollable fury of his little boy. He would have given anything to alleviate his child's pain, but this was beyond his control. He took the child to therapists who said that his boy had above average intelligence, but had serious emotional problems as a result of the absence of the boy's mother.

The father did what he could only do and that was to ameliorate the problem as best he could through further counseling and medication for the boy. In time, this would prove the wise choice for with maturity the explosive outbursts of rage steadily decreased. The boy would become a man.

(to be continued)