Un-Cried Tears

By Donald D. Grasham

The unblemished love that started between a boy of 5 and a girl at 4 years of age.
Through the trials of life they experience as they mature, their love remains strong. Seen from the memory of the man as he recounts the experiences they face in a world they care little for. To Dolores Don was her world and to Don Dolores was his world. They place no value on worldly
wants above the love the two share. There was no 50-50, with them it was 100-100.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477144121

Donald D. Grasham

A quiet and resolute individual, Don prefers the rustic outdoors than city life. His travels to Mexico include Tulum, Coba, and Chichen Itza for archeological concern. His Travels to Torreon and Guanajuato and other cities were for the true contrast of every day life in Mexico. A member Of the Texas Archeological Society. Don holds that the history of our ancestors is important in life. They survived, and it is lessons from their struggles that teach what values in life really are.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Donald D. Grasham.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012912738

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4771-4411-4

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4771-4410-7

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4771-4412-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

The Mirror

1. The Burning

2. Left

3. Day Two

4. The Day I Met An Angel

5. Long Night

6. Valley of Tears

7. My Dolores

8. LOST

9. Abrazos y Besos

10. Dry the Tears From Your Eyes

11. I Do Have A Family

12. Tears of Life

13. The Walk

14. Your Gift to Me

15. Desert Walks

16. What I feel What I know

17. The Island

18. 2 Cents

19. La Magia por Amor

20. Sands of Time

21. Kisses

22. Note to My Dolores

23. Unexpected Changes

24. Poetry

25. Yhe Incident

26. Changes

27. The Train

28. The Hanging

29. A Mans Duty

30. Time

31. Thoughts

32. Bridges and Rattlers

33. The Bra Department

34. A Talk

35. Understanding

36. Precious Moments

37. Donovan`s Reef

38. Love with your Heart

39. I was looking

40. The Carnival

41. It Started With A Smile

42. School

43. The Orchid

44. Your Smile

45. Blue Eyes Crying

46. Adulation

47. Guanajuato

48. The Drive

49. One of Many Trails

50. Tia`s Story

51. My Chispita

52. Torreon

53. Thorns

54. Rocks Along the Trail

55. Lost

56. The Abyss

57. Dolores’s Letter

58. I Must Think

59. Return

60. Eagle Pass

61. Weekends

62. 6 decembre 2011

The Mirror

THE SKY IS over cast and the rain a slow drizzle. As it rains the Earth renews itself, it is a time of reflection. I sit and look about my surroundings, gently sipping the hot coffee with cinnamon.

I see two young people strolling hand in hand, oblivious to the rain. They are content just being together and enjoying each others company. They stop momentously and kiss, a kiss of lovers in love. Separate each is a flower but together they are a bouquet.

The rain has become heavier and the young couple runs for the shelter of a pavilion. As they run, their hands never separate. The willingness to share the adverse weather is obvious. The man has taken off his coat and placed it around the woman. A great gesture that is small in nature. In response the woman has moved closer to the man to share her warmth and appreciation to him.

The man has now bought a flower and placed it in her chestnut hair. At that moment that flower is priceless. There are no words that truly define the feeling of being in love. It is as if words do an injustice to the feeling of loving and being loved in return.

Now I sit across from that woman, and we are having coffee together. Looking and drinking, not just the coffee, but the love we express with our eyes.

Dolores and Don

The day I walked away is forever burned into my memory, even now after 40 years it resides within the deep stillness of memory, I came home to the waiting arms of the most precious gift I could receive in this life. The arms of my Dolores, yes, she is my Dolores.

1

The Burning

THE EXACT DATE I don’t recall, but it was on a Friday and the pain of my hand and fingers burning are still with me. I tried to earn my mothers love, I saw how she loved my brothers and sisters. For me it was different. I was being slapped, hit with a belt across my back or a shoe on my arms and head. I was called into the kitchen, normally I was never even spoken to. I thought or wished today things would be different for me. It was different, and not in a good way. My mother was by the stove and told me to come over. I did as I was told, to refuse would mean a belt across my back or legs.

My brothers and sisters had left for school, I was alone and no one to stop her. It is difficult to say mother or mom. She asked, Did you wash your hands? I replied, Yes. She said, Let me see them. I raised my left hand and she grasped it by the wrist. That’s when I felt real pain, pain from a belt or shoe fades. This pain would stay with me forever. She placed my hand over the burner on the stove, and I felt the heat of the flames circling my fingers and singeing the bottom of my hand. Oh that pain, that burning pain, as the flames ate away at the flesh. I heard my fingers, I heard my voice, I heard nothing… When I awoke, I was laying on the floor and my hand was red and black, and it was stuck to the floor. But it is the pain I remember the most.

Oh how it hurt, it hurt so bad. I had to lift my hand from the floor and some of the skin remained. I didn’t want to look at it. My hand was burnt and the pain, the pain I still have no description to write this day of it. All I could do was sit and hold my hand with my good hand. I know I cried, and yet I don’t remember doing so. She was sitting there drinking coffee and never looked my way. Why? How could she do this to me? I don’t recall much of that day, mostly I recall is the pain of my hand and fingers.

How I felt each finger in pain, how I felt the bottom of my hand in pain.

What did I do to deserve such a deed! I tried to get up, but my stomach became sick, so I stayed sitting on the floor with my back against the wall. I wanted the pain to go away. I wanted to die, so there would be no more pain.

The pain, it never stops, it crawls over your fingers and down the palm of your hand. It sears itself into your mind and tears. It is always there, the burning, the throbbing, the pain of my burnt hand. This was my reward, when all I ever wanted was to have her love me as she did my brothers and sisters. I sat with my back against the wall; She got up and poured her a new cup of coffee, but in passing she slapped my burnt hand. I remember the ferocity of the slap, how the sharp intensity shot right over my whole body. How the pain magnified and I threw up, how she grabbed my hair and then rubbed my face in it. Then she dragged me across the floor towards the stove. Once again she placed my hand over the flames, how long I don’t recall.

My dad is here, I can not move, I am afraid to move. I know she will not be hurting me now. I see my dad, he comes over to me and sees my hand, he says nothing. He picks me up and takes me to the sink and runs cold water over my hand. It hurts, it hurts bad. He gets some bandages and wraps my hand. I am taken to my bedroom, I hear them talking. I hear her say, Get that piece of crap out of this house and away from me. Dad comes in with a suitcase and puts my few belongings in it. He takes the suitcase with him; he is back and picks me up and takes me to the car. All this time my hand is searing with pain, pain that never stops, but shoots up and down my hand.

I hear him say, I am taking him to Mexico to be with his grandmother. We drive and it seems forever. During this drive my dad never says one word to me. I am thirsty, I am, I don’t know what I was… All I could think of was the pain in my hand. I remember sitting there, in the back seat, and feeling the wind come from the windows. Mostly I slept, I never slept long, the pain in my hand was always throbbing with sharp intense arrows shooting up and down my fingers. I wanted to cry, but I had no tears left. I only had the pain and it was not just from my hand. I do recall asking myself, Why did she do this to me, why did she always find ways to hurt me? What was wrong with me that she hated me so much? At 5 years of age there are no answers, just the pain of a burnt hand and not being loved. We arrive at this big house, like a castle it was.

2

Left

MY DAD GETS out of the car and leaves me sitting in the car. I am afraid, my hand is hurting, sharp arrows of pain, it never stops. My dad comes out of the house and grabs the suitcase and places it upon the porch. There are two women standing there looking out towards the car. Dad comes to my door and opens it and says, Come with me. I follow him and he turns to me and says, This is your grandmother, you will be living with her. He turns and walks back to the car and gets in. He backs up and drives away. He didn’t even say good bye, not a hug, nothing. He just drove away leaving me with these two women I do not know. To watch the car, to watch your dad drive away, and my hand hurting so bad. I did not think, I just cried inside, I cried to die and be free of this world. The woman says, Come inside with us.

I turn and look at these women, and I thought what hell will be inside this place for me. Will this be the place I die, will they kill me here in this big house. It is late and my hand is hurting, it hurts so bad. I will not cry, I am Don, I am not afraid, but I am afraid, so afraid. I am taken to the kitchen and I see these tables and then this big black stove. I want to run, I want to hide. Then the one who my dad said was my grandmother says, Follow me.

She takes me down this long hall and says, This will be your bedroom. We go in and she places my suitcase by the bed. She raises her hand to put on my shoulder.

All I could do was run towards a corner. I bumped my burnt hand and how the pain shot through