Today is my mother’s birthday. She’s been gone now for thirteen years. The world is definitely a better place since she has left and my life has really done a full one eighty since then. However, I will admit that her legacy will haunt my world for the rest of my life. I wonder all the time if it will affect others in our family though. It’s one of my deepest fears. Yes, I know, you would never think so, but I do have fears. Most of my fears revolve around my children or the fact that I am not as skilled a hunter as I believe myself to be. Surely those fears are unjustified, but they are there none-the-less.
So what does one do on the birthday of Marion Smythwick? I will do what I have done every year since her death. I will go to her grave in Manataqua Point Cemetery on Essex Street and place a flower on her grave, then I eat my lunch sitting on a stool near her headstone.
Today it’s bitterly cold with a bit of snow left over, but that somehow that seems fitting and I will not change my tradition. She is after all, my mother.
I wonder, if I should ever tell my children about the darkness in our family history. A darkness that I carry on – somewhat unwillingly.
Happy Birthday Mom, may you find the peace in death that you never had in life.
About The Steel Van Man Chronicles
The Steel Van Man is a thriller that was released in August of 2013 about a serial killer who hunts down those that abuse children. You can get the full book here. The “Chronicles” are the continuing journal of the serial killer from its point of view as it continues through its daily life.