I Have Given Her the Burdens of My Family

The streetlights passed in the silent darkness. I cruised the concrete roadways. I reflected upon the feelings that passed without thought. The feelings I have fought for. The feelings once foreign. I wondered what lifelong love and acceptance felt like. I wondered what a life without fearing death felt like. What life would be without destruction, neglect, and abuse. I wondered what a life of feeling unconditional love felt like. Her very innocence a beautiful byproduct of a life I never knew. 

I once felt like an awkward invader. I wondered when the other shoe dropped. I wondered when divides cracked and crumbled. I watched and wondered, without fruition. Without fruition, I forgot to watch and wonder. I take for granted those feelings I once fought for. I take for granted her family. I forget to watch and wonder. The divides do not crack and crumble. The other shoe does not drop. The love is unconditional. I take for granted that which I once fought for, that which they provide without condition, acceptance. 

I laughed and loved without hesitation. I no longer watched as the awkward invader. I experienced it as family.

She and her family have given that which I have fought for. They have given while I have taken. I have taken her innocence. I have shattered her notion that families must love unconditionally. I have taken the security. I have shown that the other shoe can drop; that divides can crack and crumble. I have given her complexity and apprehension. I have given her rules and conditions. 

I have given her the burdens of my family. I have given her the burdensome repercussions of abuse and neglect. I have given her a man who always fights for others, in the hopes they might preserve or one day experience the unconditional. I have given that which takes. All I can give is an apology that is not mine to give. That I bear no bearing upon its change. In her family I have found that which I fight desperately to find in my own. Acceptance. Understanding. Unconditional love. 

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Jake Smith is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger with four deployments to Afghanistan.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.