Chapter 28 - Trial of the Heart (1/2)
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You are probably wondering now: How is it that Ray/Itachi had a mom? Didn't she abandon him at an orphanage?
The answer to that question is, yes. She did abandon him, but during his childhood was adopted a number of times. And in this chapter I will tell you his background and the tragedy that shaped his live forever.
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February 16, 1992, New York City
On this day a 4-year-old Ray Williams was sitting in the foster home. He got into another fight with the older kids and was blamed yet again by them for starting the fight. As punishment, Ray was forced to go to bed early without dinner. Ray Williams, who at this point in his life was named Ray Thompson, was born on March 6th, 1988 in New York City. His birth mother's name was Judy Thompson, as stated on his birth certificate, and his father was unknown. Because at that time his birth mother was a 16-year-old girl who had no way of taking care of the baby, she gave him up for adoption right after his birth.
What Ray didn't know was that at this point a woman named Josephine Williams was in talks with the foster home in order to adopt a child. When she was younger, she suffered from cervical cancer. But luckily for her, the doctors discovered it very early on and had undergone surgery to remove her uterus to cure her of her cancer. She ended up losing the ability to ever pregnant and because she wanted to be a mother very badly she ended wanting to adopt a child that was still very young, and Ray being the youngest was then chosen. She had met Ray a few times over the course of adopting a child and ended up adopting him.
(A.N.: I will be honest with you. I have no idea how the U.S. foster care system and adoption works in details. What this is, is me guessing and writing it down. If any of you know how this system work, I would love to hear from you and I will obviously correct it than.)
After she had adopted Ray, they started living together. The first few months were the hardest. Ray would never listen to a word she said and they ended fighting a lot. But throughout all of it Josephine would remain patient and always try to be a loving mother to Ray. After hearing what Ray had been through in his short life, she knew that what he needed the most was a loving mother to give him the love he desperately needed. After six months Ray started to change, he was no longer always angry and he started to listen to Josephine. After living with Josephine for a year, he started calling her mom and his name was changed to Ray Williams.
Four years later, when Ray was 9 years old, he and Josephine, who he always called mom, were driving home from school. Ray was in the backseat holding a drawing he made of himself and his mother.
”Mom, mom look at this drawing that I made in school during Arts & Crafts.” Said Ray excitedly to his mother.
”That's great honey. What was the theme of the drawing?” said his mother.
”We were supposed to draw something that we loved the most. So I made a drawing of you and me holding hands beneath a rainbow.” Said Ray as he showed her his drawing.
Looking behind her for a second to look at the drawing Ray made, Josephine failed to notice that she had run a red light. And at that moment a truck hit the car that she and Ray were in from the left side. Josephine was unfortunately killed during the collision but Ray survived with just some bruises because he was sitting at the back right and was wearing his seat belt. Getting out his seat, Ray crawls to the front seat where his mother was sitting motionless and starts to desperately shaking her, hoping she would wake up.
”Mom? MOM!! PLEASE WAKE UP MOM!! PLEASE WAKE UP!! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ALONE!! WAKE UP MOM!! WAKE UP!! PLEASE WAKE UP, PLEASE!!” screamed Ray at his now dead mother before he is pulled out of the wreckage by paramedics.
And so his life of misery began. He was back into the foster system again and every family that would adopt him would just as quickly drop him. He would never listen and always get into trouble with either the police or the parents of the children that he would fight with. And if his stepparents at that time wanted to say something about it, he would never listen and just run away. Ever since the day his mother died, school never worked out for him. He would never make homework, always cut class and fight with other students. This continued on until his 18th birthday and by then he had dropped out of his 3rd high school. After the age of 18 he was also forced out of the foster system and forced to make a living of his own. Until the age of 28 Ray Williams, formerly Ray Thompson, lived a life of misery. After being sent out of the foster system, he decided to find his own birth mother. All he had was his birth certificate that had his birth mother's name on it: Judy Thompson.
After 2 years of searching for clues, he found his birth mother. But it wasn't a happy reunion. Apparently his birth mother died on March 8th, 1998. She died on his tenth birthday as he was having a fierce argument with his newly adopted family and ran away from home. According to the hospital she died at, they told him that she died because of a heroin overdose. The only reason they told him was because he was her biological son. According to some friends of his birth mother that he managed to track down, she was a 16-year-old girl that was pregnant with Ray at the time and kicked out of the house by her family. According to them, her family was an ultra-conservative and very religious family, they saw her pregnancy as a humiliation to the family and they kicked her out. His birth mother, a 16-year-old girl, forced to live on the streets with no support from either her family or her ex-boyfriend who i.m.p.r.e.g.n.a.t.ed her and right after he knew about her pregnancy broke up with her and abandoned her. The only hope she had for her unborn child was to give it up for adoption and hope it would have a better life than her.
(A.N.: I don't know if hospitals will tell you about the circ.u.mstances of their patient's deaths if you are their relatives. But I wrote it to add some drama to my story. Feel free to correct me and I'd love to hear from you in the comments.)