My Recovery Method.

Part One- the very start.

I was born on September 17th, 1929 in New York City with my sister, Maria. My parents were poor and it was even a marvel that we survived birth. My mother used to always say how I would only sleep if Maria was there with me. We were always close, always together, I was technically the little brother by 8 minutes and she always used that to her advantage. "I'm the oldest! I get to play the robber!" she would yell when we would play police and robbers in the street . Of course, this was all before our mother got sick... It got bad, she was so weak she couldn't leave bed, our father turned to alcohol instead of helping his wife and he left us to deal with her. Somehow she always had hope though, not hope for her, but Hope for my sister and I. She always trusted us to know what to do. "God has a plan for you, children..." she would whisper from bed, petting both of our hair, "you both will show the world... I can feel it..." she would say before she would fall asleep. I was always less mature than Maria, I saw the good in the world and she saw the bad. She always saw the bad... After our mother inevitably passed our father committed suicide just a few short months after. We were fourteen when that happened and it was when I finally saw what the world can do to people. It was finally when I saw that you don't live, you survive.

When we left home we both got jobs, none of them lasted very long and we went hungry a lot. At points we resorted to begging strangers for money. I worked in a butchery and Maria worked in a fabric factory until we were sixteen. I remember Maria coming home to our shack of a shelter with clumps of her honey blonde hair missing, "my hair got caught in the fabric weaver again..." she would mutter before she'd eat a slab of bad meat I took from the butchery and go to sleep, shivering. I never found myself sleeping much...

We were put into an orphanage on our 17th birthday. It was a miracle they would take us considering we were almost eighteen anyways but they fed us, kept us warm, sheltered us from brutal weather... It wasn't horrible. Maria didn't like it though, she preferred the quiet though I know that she found serenity in her dreams... I always told her that she had a guardian angel watching over her and she'd dismiss the thought out of hand. "You still really believe in the crap mother fed you?" she would say with judgment in her voice "At least it gives me something to believe" I would always reply with a shrug and a ruffle of her hair.

Maria was always one for a fight. She was always getting herself in bad situations with bad people in bad places but I would always be there to save her ass. She was always hooking up with rude boys who didn't treat her well and even more rude girls who scoffed and turned their nose like she was a street drunk. Of course she could handle herself but as her brother I'll take the real credit.

Then we turned eighteen. Eighteen is a funny story... We both joined the army at age eighteen, we both grew at age eighteen, and we both changed at eighteen... But I think I'll stop writing for tonight... Faith says it's a good idea but she also thinks I might break my pencil in two if I keep writing... Goodnight.