Asphyxia
Your father died an hour before you were born. There was a lot of screaming that day. Your mother, air hissing through her clenched teeth and hands grasping at empty air, pushing while surrounded by white walls and the bitter smell of antiseptic. Garbled words of a foreign language grabbed her by the cheeks and shook her. There was no familiarity in this cold hospital. No family waiting outside for her. Only two nurses and a supervising doctor clad in white who watched through deep set eyes as she struggled. She was only twenty, and the stack of her two decades seemed pitiful in the grand scheme of things. Four miles away, your father’s car sped through a red light. It was promptly t-boned by a semi and flipped twice in a blinding arc of light and screeching metal that momentarily lit up the night. Stained pieces of baby blankets, a stuffed bunny, and his body were among the things scraped off the cold concrete. Later, your mother told you his death registered as a …