I was left alone and rootless in this world from the very first time my mother became pregnant. I was born with what is termed neonatal abstinence syndrome. I'd already lived more than the most of kids my age. It's very easy, all through my life inside my mother's womb, I was doing heroin and large amounts of alcohol and antidepressants. So I was a drug addict before I was even born. By the way, my name is Ashlee.
I was a breathtaking beautiful and healthy-looking baby. Little did they know such a tremendous drama that was about to unleash inside my tiny body. Just my second day of life it started to show the symthoms. My pristine skin started to get filled with blemish like little flecks, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I had constant cases of diarrhoea and fever and I couldn't stop from bawling.
Both my mother and I were subjected to numerous tests. After them I must stay a week at the hospital. As I was terribly dehydrated there was a need for I received fluids through my vein.
As the abstinence syndrome babys are characterized by being irritable and it's a hard task calm us down, the nurses advices were the so called "swaddling" or "loving cares". That implied they rocked me very softly, the noise and the lights were almost inexistent and I should be in contact skin by skin with my mother. All was achieved but the latter. As my mother ran away the hospital in search of her dose just two days after giving birth, the available substitute for me was wrapping me with a blanket.
As my difficulties to eat and relax were great, to treating my abstinence they must medicate me with methadone. To make matters worse, my serious dermatitis made my day was spent with crying and I was always wrapped in special balms to soothe me.
Being my mother HIV positive, there were many chances I would be also. When I was 21 days old, they did the tests. I was negative. The test must repeated after two months and six months. I was negative. I just had to deal with my abstinence syndrome. Whoopee! Yeah, I know my overall picture was nightmarish and depressing but that's how I entered into this world and luckily I survived it.
The "loving cares" lasted three months. Little by little I came out that hell with the medical team's extraordinary pacience. They fed me high caloric level and tiny portions of food oftener all through the day. Step by step I got to eat like an ordinary baby, not crying without reason and the flecks on my skin disappeared.
I didn't know ever who my father was, I doubt my mother knew him either. Going out the hospital, I had the huge luck to end up into a loving family's home in Birmingham. My parents, Brenda and Jude, are the most wonderful people that life could ever bring to me. Everything I am, I owe it to them.
I can still recall perfectly my tiny cradle, gripping my father's fingers, the only fingers that interested me when the night came down on me. They spoiled me with their constant touches. I had a sort of restlessness that it took years to appease. The babys who are born with that fault have a lot more chances to dying of sudden death and they were always aware of that. That's why they spent their nights wide awake staring at me while I was sleeping. They were distressed and blessed and I was just interested in clinging to them with an unusual power in my tiny hands.
From my former life as a young drug addict's daughter I didn't know anything while I was growing up like a beautiful flower. The only thing I inherited were my father or mother's features or a perfect blend of both of them. Nothing else. Luckily I had neither memories nor consequences from their dangerous inheritance.
At the early age of 13, my parents came to me one day and decided talking to me like an adult. I was maybe an adult at that age. I was introverted and independent, with my own criteria from the very start and a strong personality. Maybe because of a lot of that, my parents needed to let me know about my hazardous journey.
I had several mixed feelings. A vulcano. I asked many questions. Some of them could be answered and some of them couldn't. I guess at one point they thought they were too modern talking to such a very young girl about her evident uprooting. And shyly my father knocked respectfully at my bedroom's door and he sat on my bed beside me. I assured him I was alright despite my questioning.
- We don't know much about your mother but one thing is sure. You've inherited her beauty.
I looked at him with my eyes wide open, astounded.
- Look, your mother and I got one picture to show you. We think it would make you happy.
I held the picture in my hands. I watched one girl about fifteen or sixteen years old, two more than me right then. I didn't ask them how they got it or how much time had been at home. My eyes dragged over that girl, curious. Blond, very slim. On the image she smoked in pensive mood, looking at a point which she could hardly hold her attention. She seemed lost in thought, withdrawn. Her thin brows somewhat raised and she had her bony knees stuck to her chest, cladded in a pair of denim shorts.
It showed a teenager with the background of a damp wall behind her back. Her big eyes still looked innocent and kinda resentful. She looked so beautiful.
- That's all that we have from your mother, darling. Well, and this.
Then my father placed into my lap a lot of Lps. I stared at them curious. The first thing that my eyes bumped into was four long haired boys looking challenging to the camera. One blond, other brown haired, another one with curly black hair and then it was the fourth whose hollow cheek bones competed in beauty with big and long hands embracing himself and a black almost blue mane. You could only envision around his eyes, his dreamy eyelids lavishly with make-up and his pouty lips ready to kiss. Queen II, I read intrigued.
- Your mother loved them. It's the only possession she left behind.
- Thanks, dad. I can't wait to listen to them and see if I agree with her.
Lp's both sides were divided in Black Side and White Side instead A-side and B-side. The first one was the White side, monopolized by May's compositions plus one Roger's. The Black side was totally Freddie's and after hearing it just twice, it became my favourite side. His dark, gloomy, passionate, intriguing lyrics. And among that darkness, it surged Nevermore, with its haunting, sweet, innocent piano. His voice entered into my ears rocking me while he threw out his heartache to the air. And my life changed after that one minute and seventeen seconds. I felt I'll never be lonely again.