Family

A Culmination of the Best and Worst of Humanity

13 Jan, 2022

Liam stepped up to the stand and looked around at the many people staring back at him. Felucca, Bunny and Pandora stood to his side, waiting. He looked back at the coffins behind him, and brought the microphone close to his mouth.

"One year ago today, we buried my boyfriend, Chris," he began. "He died in a car crash, or so I thought at the time. It turned out a guy named Bojan killed him, along with a great deal of other people. He - was a bad man. And now, he's in jail, where he belongs. But the pain he caused cannot be undone. He manipulated me, and many of my family members. When Chris died - I didn't think pain like that could be paralleled. But in Bojan's last ditch effort for power, he caused me more pain than I could have predicted.

"Lying behind me is Geoffrey Soileh, Bojan's lover. For the longest time, he was my role model. He was who I believed could get me out of the fucking rut my life was in. Little did I know at the time, they were the very reason my life was in the rut in the first place! That being said, although he was entirely evil, just like Bojan, I do not necessarily believe he deserved to die for it. I don't think anybody should be executed as punishment, at any means. But if he didn't die, many things would have gone differently. We would have never been able to put Bojan behind bars. And so, while I feel sympathy for those who cared for the man, I cannot in good conscience say that things would be better if he hadn't died. My sincerest condolences to those who cared for Mr Soileh, but I haven't much more to say about him.

"Apart from him, lying behind me are my mother, father, and sister. All those who I grew up believing were my family are now dead. I now realize that I have another family, and have found great value in my sister Pandora, whom I, for the longest time believed to not be my sister. I realize that was wrong of me, and am now delighted that she is willing to forgive me and move on. But, having a found family does not remove the pain, guilt and devastation that floods upon a soul when something like this occurs. Mum, Dad, and Eve are dead now. Nothing can change that.

"Of the three of them, my mother, Mary, was the one I felt closest to. She always supported me and my choices, and she made me feel good about myself. In retrospect, she may not have been the best mother one can be, but she tried. And that is what matters. In respect of her, I will not talk about her flaws as a mother, but rather her values as a person. She had a very tragic experience in her young days, and she came out of it with values of simply wanting to make others happy. She radiated positivity, but when, at the start of last year, several traumatic events began to occur she crumbled. And - and I know the feeling. I understand her, and although she ended up the way she did, she didn't have someone trying to pull her to the light. I did, and I could never thank them enough.

"That brings me to my father, Phy. He, similarly to Mum, had noone to pull him out of the darkness. I, personally, have had a very up-and-down relationship with him. Growing up, he was the one who disciplined us, so naturally we preferred Mum. But as we entered our teen years, we began to realize just how much Dad cared about us. But then Mum told us Pandora was adopted, and as I previously mentioned I did not react well to this, for a long time. Dad was upset at me for this for a while too, but sooner or later he began to warm up to me yet again. But then, he kicked me out of the house for having a boyfriend. At the time I hated him for this, but now I know why he did it, and the sorts of things he was going through at the time. All in all, our on-and-off relationship drove him to think he could not come to me for advice or council. After the events of Christmas Day, even though we were here for him, he didn't feel like we were. He felt like he had noone left, noone left living for. And so he killed himself, and tried getting Pandora, Tom and I to do the same. Pandora and I were sane enough to not, but Tom had noone left either. We were lucky enough to save his life, and he's now spending time in an institute so the doctors can make him better. In the end, he did some fucked up shit. But he was still my Dad, and he did what he did because he loved me, and he loved us. I - I can't blame him for doing it. I have tried to do the same thing many a time. But almost every time I did it, I had someone there to help me. To support me.