Untitled Fictional Memoir by Ryan O'Connor

Ryan O’Connor
Writing for Publication


Chapter 1
Birth

It was an uneventful day on June 3, 1977, in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It was a day like any other. Except of course, for the family gathered in a cold-white waiting room, and the woman screaming in room down the hall, watched over by gentle men with expert hands and white-sterile masks. It was anything but normal for the man comforting his wife, telling her almost, almost; just keep going. It was, of course, the day that I was born.
Of course I don’t remember my birth. Despite my incredible memory of my 32 years, no one remembers being born. However, for the sake of storytelling, I will use the information of others to portray what occurred during my earliest days.
I was born a fine, healthy baby. This on its own was surprising enough; my mother had gone through three unsuccessful pregnancies prior to me, and even my older brother’s birth was full of complications. My birth would’ve been thought as a blessing; a miracle, if not for the horrible consequences that followed. As my father kneeled down and handed me to my weak and weary mother, and as she held me in her fragile arms, she whispered one word, so quiet that only my father and I could hear. Then she closed her eyes and drifted to sleep, never to wake again.
I never really found out why my mother died giving birth to me. I guess the strain from all the failed pregnancies had wreaked havoc on her body, and giving birth to me, along with the massive loss of blood, proved to be too much for my poor mother, and her body shut down. What I do know, however, is her last whispered word.
It was a name. It was my name.
Brendan.

Chapter 2
Granddad Art

My father had a tough time raising me without his wife; my mother. But even though she died giving me my first breath, I know he never once blamed me for it. He was as loving and as great as any other father, if not even better. And even though he tried his best to work twice as hard and act as twice the parent, he often required help from my older brother, Ross, and my grandfather.
My grandfather, Art, was an Irish immigrant who came into Boston Harbor with my grandmother from county Sligo back in Ireland, where he settled down and started his family. My grandmother died shortly before Ross’s birth 6 years prior, and Art had lived with us ever since, in our small home in Boston.
After my birth, and my mother’s death, Art became like a second father to Ross and I. As far back as I can remember he was there to take care of us, and to do whatever my father couldn’t.
Art was an incredibly proud man; proud of his family, and proud of his heritage. He had an amazing knowledge of Irish mythology, history, etymology, and was even known to break out in occasional outbursts of Gaelic when frustrated.
“Bran,” he would tell me as just an infant, sitting gleefully on his bouncing knee, while my father made dinner.
“Aye, Bran. Short for Brendan. Now you see Bran, the name Brendan goes all the way back to the Old Irish name ‘Brandubh’, which means ‘black raven’. And didn’t your mother name you well, bless her soul.” He would tousle my full head of jet-black hair, smiling and looking at me with his bright wise-gray eyes.
My father once told me that Art would tell me the origin of my name almost every single day. And even though I couldn’t understand the words he said, I would stare at him with my big, blue baby eyes, and would not make a sound until he had finished speaking.
I learned to speak early, around the age of 17 months, and my first word was, of course, my name. I would run around the house, running to the arms of my father, my brother, Art, or anyone at all, gleefully screaming the entire time, “Bran! Bran!”
My father would laugh and lift me off the ground, hugging me to his chest.
“That’s right, Brendan,” he would say to me, smiling, “that is the name your mother gave you, and you should be proud to have it.”
“Bran!” I would scream again laughing, holding myself tightly around my father’s neck.

Chapter 3
In The Eyes Of The Beholder

People always told me I had my mother’s eyes. Even as an infant, people would marvel at my piercing icy-blue eyes.
As a small child, I never questioned why I didn’t have a mother. I knew I had a father, and a granddad Art, and I just assumed that I was special in that way. I also knew that sometimes, my dad would hold the picture of a very pretty woman and try to hold back his tears. I didn’t know why he was sad, but I still climbed onto his lap and gave him a hug.
It wasn’t until my first day of 1st grade, when all of my friends where saying goodbye to their mothers and fathers, while I was saying goodbye to my father and my granddad Art, that I began to question it. I wanted to ask Ross, but he was at a new school this year. So as I sat in my chair, and ate my lunch, and played at recess, I wondered.
Where is my mother?
“Where is my mom?” I asked as soon as Art picked me up after school.
He looked at me with surprised eyes. “Your mother?”
“Yes.” I said a matter-of-factly. “I do have one, right? People are always saying I have her eyes, so I must have one.’
“Aye, Bran,” Art said with a laugh, “of course you do. But this is really something your father should talk to you about. Can you wait till we get back to the house?”
He knew I certainly did not want to wait, but the way he said it was less of a request, and more of an order. “Yeah, Granddad, I’ll wait.”
And I did wait. I waited until he went and picked up my brother at the junior high, and I waited until we drove all the way back home. I even waited while we walked up the front steps and into the house. Once I got inside though, I could barely keep from fidgeting.
“Ross, Brendan! How was your first day of school?” my father said as he walked in from the kitchen, smiling.
“Good.” I replied, and before Ross could say anything, added “Hey Dad, where is my mom?”
He grew silent and somber. “Your mother, Brendan?”
“Yeah,” I asked. “All the other kids at school had a mom to say goodbye to at school. Why didn’t I?”
Ross stared at me in silent wonder. It made me feel like I had done something wrong. But I didn’t. Did I?
My dad sat down on the chair, and patted his lap, inviting me to sit upon it. I quickly scrambled onto it and looked at him. His eyes were closed. Was he sad? Upset? Angry?
He opened his eyes, and looked at me.
“Your mother…” he started, and then looked at Art. “Hey dad, can you go grab the picture from my bedroom?”
“One sec,” Art said as he left the room for a moment, and then returned with the photo that I often saw my dad holding. The woman in the picture was really very pretty.
“Is that her?” I asked, looking at the picture. There was another person in the picture too. It looked like my dad.
“Yes, Brendan. That is your mother and I when we were first married.”
I stared at the picture, at my young parents. Back when the photo was taken, my father’s hair was less grey, and blacker, almost like mine.
I looked back at the photo, looking at my mother. Almost the first thing I noticed was her eyes, the piercing icy-blue, just like mine. Her hair was different though. It was lighter, more like Ross’s.
“Dad,” I asked, looking away from the picture, “where is she now?”
He looked at me with sad, weary eyes, “Brendan… your mother…”
He started with the story of how they met. A small coffee shop, being introduced as the friend of a friend, and how soon after their love for each other blossomed. How he proposed to my mother, in the same coffee shop where they met. It was the clichéd tale of a hopeless romantic, yet it was my father’s, and I drank in every word he said.
He told of their wedding, and how beautiful it was, and how beautiful she was. He told me about Ross’s birth, and how near-catastrophic it was. He told me about how failed pregnancies came after that. And then, he told me about my own birth. And he told me about how my mother gave me a name in her last breath.
I realized I had started to cry. I was afraid my father hated me. I killed his wife, my mother. Why wouldn’t he hate me?
“Oh Brendan, don’t worry.” He told me, hugging me tight, “I don’t blame you. With her last breath, your mother gave you life, and with it a piece of her you’ll always carry.”
He lifted up my chin, and looked into my now beet-red face.
“Your mother gave me her heart. She gave Ross her hair. And she gave you her eyes.”
That night I thought about it for a long time. My mother died because of me. Yet, if she gave me such a beautiful gift, could she really be mad at me? I just laid there and thought, for what seemed like forever.
If she wanted to give me such an amazing gift, I concluded, of course she wouldn’t blame me. My mother loved me with all that was left of her.
And I decided that for the rest of my life, I would carry her gift with pride.
My icy-blue eyes.

Chapter 4
Crowe’s Wings

The summer after 5th grade, my father decided to take the family on a camping trip in Vermont. The cabin we stayed in belonged to a friend of my father’s, and it had been offered to us for a week.
I was 11 years old by this point, and had never been camping before. The whole drive up, I shook with excitement in my seat.
Living in the city my entire life, I had never before seen so much open land before, just grass, farms, and trees as far as the eye could see. A few times we drove through some small towns, but outside of the towns, houses were far and few between. It was unreal to me, after growing up in such an urban area.
Eventually we turned off the main road onto a gravel road, and followed it up a steep hill leading through the thick line of trees.