Prologue: A Child’s Eyes
As a child, I knew my parents were not perfect. I saw the cracks in the facade they presented to the outside
world.
My name is Devin, and at the time of writing this story, I am a 34-year-old father of two wonderful children
and have been married to my wife for thirteen years.
I recently learned that I have a condition called aphantasia, which is essentially an inability to form mental
images, sometimes described as having a blind mind’s eye.
I lack the ability to mentally visualize, which I have wondered may contribute to some of the difficulty I have
recalling my memories.
I bring this up simply to explain the gaps in my memory as they pertain to my childhood and to events that
might have shed further light on this story.
I lived my life completely unaware of this condition until the age of 30.
Much of my memory from my younger years remains locked behind a wall of fog, unable to be recalled.
The few memories I have retained are generally times I do not wish to be reminded of.
Unfortunately, I remember the bad far more vividly than the good.
In retrospect, this may be part of why I had such difficulty understanding my parents’ mentality as I became
an adult.
I cannot remember much about how they acted when I was a child or even a teenager.
The bulk of this account will therefore come from my adult perspective and will focus primarily on the last
five years of my mom’s life.