TERRIFIC, IMADEIT, life has been like a roller coaster.there have been many highs and lows,ups and downs,countless sleepless nights, exhausting days.
I lay down on the bed and breath out sighs of relief.
Shelly was a twenty three years old lady,she has finally moved into a new apartment, ready to start a new job at a new city away from the only surviving relative she has..
a deadbeat father who is after her sanity.
She was six years old when her mother passed away from illness, she could still remember the shakes,vomits,groans of pain,the shivering,rapid loss of hair and weight.whenever she closes her eyes she could still hear sobs dead in the night.
The community college she had attended was sponsored by the community church that her mother attended when she was still alive.
All that is now in the past,Shelly is ready for a fresh start away from pointing fingers and pitiful gazes.she no longer has to go to bed hungry and cold,her father was a known drunkard and also an abusive parent.
Her father had been deeply in love with his late wife before she fell ill,he suddenly took a turn for worse when her mother was diagnosed with 2 stage lung cancer.
All her chemotherapy treatment and drugs was just pouring money into bottomless pit without any returns.
After six months of battling cancer and multiple chemotherapy, Shelly's mother died leaving her father heartbroken,he took to alcohol, neglecting his six years old daughter.
Little Shelly had to start caring for her drunken father, clearing up empty bottles of wine, cleaning up vomits,urine and excretas, preparing meals from expired or stale condiments and vegetables.
One day,little Shelly found her father lying down in a pool of his vomit and tried to help him up.
'Retch retch' she was drenched with shocking green, smelly vomit from her drunk father.she will never forget the smell of bile over her body and dress.she sometimes still smell it
Not only had her father taken to alcoholic drinks but his temperament has taken a turn for worse,he hits his little daughter for any perceived wrong doing.
Growing up,She wore her clothes until they tore from being undersized.she survived on charity and welfare from the local church.
Her classmates laughs at her and some parents had pitiful gazes,some parents forbids their kids from playing with her, some are kind giving her their children leftovers of food, clothes and toys.
'All that is now in the past, I'm all grown up now,I have got my college degree and moving uptown to a fresh start'.shelly encourages herself while looking at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.