The Story of Michael, Part 1.

There was a young man, and at the tender age of nineteen, he became an orphan.

When most imagine a child who has lost his parents, they think much younger than that. Past the stage of pacifiers and diapers, before the age of first loves and diplomas; most think of yellow school busses, stuffed animals.

They underestimate how lost one can feel, when you’re supposed to be an ‘adult’, but haven’t a clue how the world works, just yet. When you’re told that now is the time to be independent, to developing the man you are meant to be, but you still need a guide every step of the way.

A young man by the name of Michael was still finding his feet. He did not live at home. He wasn’t going to university, just yet; he didn’t know which direction he wanted to take, in his life. He worked at a store that sold musical instruments, and used the money to save for a car. Half of it went towards his rent. He only needed fifty percent of his paycheque, for that.

One half of his rent paid by a roommate he rarely saw. One quarter paid by his mother and father, who scraped the bottom of the bank to help him get a solid start. One quarter from his own pocket.

He did his laundry at their house. He was slowly learning how to cook. Michael still felt very much like a child, shoved in front of his father’s closet and told to pick the suit he wanted to wear for the rest of his life.

They’d perished in a house fire. Michael was told it was because someone had forgotten to turn off a small electrical heater before they went to sleep that night, and it had sparked. The curtains had caught, and the alarm didn’t go off in time. Perhaps it had been faulty.

No matter what the cause, Michael’s parents were dead, and he had never felt quite so lost and alone…not even when he was very small, not in any circumstance he’d ever faced.

There were financial matters to go over. Confusing paperwork thrust under his nose, and he signed it all without knowing what any of it meant. He would nod, when presented with numbers, and people used terms that didn’t mean a thing to him. He had to scavenge through the burnt shell of his house and go through his parents’ things. He had to determine what could be salvaged – and what of that should be kept, or sold, or simply thrown away.

His workplace gave him one week to grieve, and paid him on the day of the funeral.

When Michael went to the graveyard, on that day, he stared at his mother and father’s name carved into stone, and felt weaker than a little boy. Weaker than a boy whose world was yellow school busses and stuffed animals; even weaker than a little boy whose world was pacifiers and diapers.

When he left the graveyard, he was still lost. But he was no longer alone.