Our Destiny

Cruising along different websites to finally hit something interesting, a hidden BLOG, something the writer would never believe would be seriously read. The site was colored pink with, of all flowers, Daisies. So, following societal dictates, my thought was, of course, a woman…a young woman. Then I began reading her entries to discover a talented writer, a writer of sensitivity, insight into human behavior, and, it must be said, a sense of deep sadness and a yearning for love.

Despite the pink background and bright yellow flowers that adorned her page, an adolescent display of innocence, her words revealed someone with life experience, both deep despair and emotional elation. My cynical radar switched on, that gut-feeling of being conned, lied to, another “Bot" masquerading as someone else other than their true self.

The final entry was an auto-biography of a distant kind; a journal, disassociated, objective, similar to viewing oneself as a total stranger.

She wrote of her mother as an unhappy middle-class housewife married to a dubious man who lacked in all the romantic sensibilities and drunk most of the time. “Dad loved his cars.”. She blamed herself for her father leaving the twenty-two-year marriage because of something she said at a restaurant one night.

After seeing a high school play, the three walked across the street from the school into a lavish restaurant. The child was small; she stood upon the cushion to look up through the window at all the “sparkles” along the street. Then, after her father’s fourth whisky- flat; he began to complain about the food, the show, yelling at his wife about his work, his unhappiness with life in general, and marrying his “mother”…he began to turn nasty. Everything and really… all his honesty showed in those seconds, for me, as a reader: a man at his emotional bottom.

The precocious little girl turned from the window and piped up, and declared,

“We make our own choices in life, and the decisions you made, dad, were wrong. You married your mother because you thought it would be good for your career. After all, she is good-looking and fit the model as the perfect wife: “great in the kitchen and a slut in bed.” I know mother isn’t a slut in bed, and I really know she’s not a good cook, so you’ve failed. Deal with it, dad, or just leave!”

Dad slapped the little girl across the face.

Mother left the room to “powder her nose,” and dad left the restaurant and never was seen again.

After only two years, the writer’s mother died of breast cancer, blaming her daughter for saying those “awful things” and forcing her husband, her father, to leave.

As the writer continued, she summed up the “incident” as her fault.

To quote her exactly, she wrote: “A’ chacun son destiny.” "Everyone to their own destiny."

This reader believes that even one conversation can lead to tragic consequences.

“My father’s eyes shined sadness and with knowing; the decision was made.”

I truly felt this in both their hearts.

Returning from the Ladies Room, sitting down, her mother declared:

“I’m now married to a “developer”; a glorified real estate salesman. I can’t cook worth a damn, and sex with him is routine.”

A’ chacun son destiny.

Turning away from the screen, I felt my shoulders grow tense. I put the BLOG in Favourites and closed the lid, falling asleep, thinking:

How will the pink/flower BLOG girl deal with her destiny tomorrow?