I grew up in your average town, with the average grades, and your average looks. I grew up alone. I wasn’t physical alone because I lived with my dad but I was emotionally alone because he never showed he cared much if at all. I’ll be twenty tomorrow. He wouldn’t remember if it weren’t also the anniversary of the worst day of his life. I go and sit on the couch and take out her diary. It’s pink and fuzzy with her initials DSP stitched on the front. Every day she would write he entry in a different color pen. I smirked at how silly my mom was. I never got to meet her so all I have are the moments to try to learn about her. dad never speaks about her and when I’ve asked in the past it’s been a lot of one word answer or yes and no. Not much detail from him. I turned the page to the end and read over my moms entry from today.. but from 20 years ago. June 25th 2000.

I started to read aloud. “ sitting here… on the tailgate of the truck looking out at Robert cutting the grass. He always said he liked to start cutting the grass as the sun was settng cause if he had to do it might as well make it enjoyable. He loved the sunsets almost as much as he loved me. The burnt orange redish look, he always said that was his favorite color. I can feel my baby girl kicking inside my belly. It’s like she can feel my happiness at this moment. This beautiful moment looking at the dimming sky and my handsome husband. It can’t get any better than this. “

That was the last entry. I read through this everyday and everyday I wonder if things could have been different. This entry is time stamped 6:52pm. I was born June 25 2000 7:24 pm. It wasn’t even an hour after my mom wrote about how happy she was did all of that change. I guess that why my dad doesn’t experience joy much. I always wonder if my dad’s favorite color changed from that night. My mom died on the bed of his burnt orange truck with red and orange skies. He brought me into this world in those same skies on that same night. I’ve never had the courage to ask him his favorite color, but I’ve never seen him cut the grass at sunset.