As I peeked around the corner of the furniture it was not my mother I believed to be lying dead on the floor. It was my father, he had shot himself to death with me in the room.  I guess he just couldn't handle the thought that I was created by artificial insemination, not by the "natural way." I think he may have wanted to kill my mother but couldn't bring himself to kill the only woman he ever loved, the mother of his child. Created artificially or not my father loved me, I will never doubt his love for me.

I don't know how many tears she cried nor how many I cried myself, that horrible night. Looking back I can remember her running into the room thinking that maybe he had shot me because he hadn't created me the way he thought he had. She slid on the hardwood floor in her socks. As she slid into the puddle of my fathers blood she started screaming with a pain filled, rage fueled, hatred for my father to come back to her. I would give up my hearing to never hear that sound again. Rocking back and forth chewing on my light brown hair I trembled as I realized my father shot himself in the head with me in the room regardless of the impact that would have me.

It took forever for the ambulance to arrive and cover his still body with a white shroud, place him in a body bag and cart his lifeless body away. I can still picture my mother staring off into the distance looking for my father to approach the house, he never came back for her not until her very last moments. I was 9 years old the day my father killed himself, I was 15 when my mother told me the story, her secret, the reason my father killed himself. The reason my father wasn't my father......