The Purpose of Haven

Definition: A place of safety or refuge.  

My mom named me Haven because I was always her haven, her light in the darkness. She always told me that she never knew her purpose until she became a mother. I may be a shooting star, but I am muffled by a dark upbringing. I came from a broken household, of shattered lies and family pictures with absent members.  

When I was only two my biological father, got into a sever motorcycle accident on the highway. He was left with permanent brain damage and was never the same. My mother left him not too long after, and that’s where my purpose was born. I gave her refuge in a wildfire of infidelity and abuse. 

Not too long after a man of no obligations took on the challenge of loving a daughter not of his own blood, and a woman who wanted a better life for her daughter. My last name changed, and I went from being a tainted Banner attached to a diseased line to a Hawkins with a new understanding of what family could be.  

I was raised around adults and did not have many friends. It was always my mom and I, us against the world she was my rock and I, her refuge. I did not have much family I could count on nor friends. I did not trust many, especially men.  

School wasn’t better, I learned young that I was different. I had a funny voice and couldn’t read. Born with disabilities I had no control of. Different was not accepted at any age.  

I never really understood how kids could play with others and socialize so easily. I was not like them. I was...unique, my name was Haven, and I was a haven for my mother. Never fit in with them. I talked funny, and it made me talk less.  

Soon the moves started and never stopped. The new girl was permanently tattooed on my forehead. New school every year. If I was lucky; we might have stayed for another, but I did not get lucky often. Instead, I took the persona of the shy quiet never too loud girl with a funny voice.  

My mom wanted me to know my biological father, so he never fully left during this time. Instead latched onto my new family like a parasite that would not go away. But not the good parasite that sucked out the bad, the kind that would show up sporadically and never the times you wanted it. I wanted my new family to be safe and detached from this parasite infecting them. So, I got rid of the parasite at age twelve and the loud voices stopped at night.  

But in getting rid of the parasite, it weakened me, the guilt just took its place. I did not blame the parasite. When I got older, I grew to understand that the parasite loved me in the only way it knew how. And in some way that hurt more.  

To fully get rid of the parasite I had to surgically remove the others that hurt my new family too. So, I got rid of the young and old. I got rid of all of them, so I could be my mom and new dad's safe place again. I do not talk to my brothers, sister, aunt, grandpa, or biological dad anymore. 

I am a Haven, and it is my purpose to be their safe place. The more we moved, the more I lost touch with any empathy I had. Soon I realized I was the parasite infecting them. Each place only made me more harmful to them. So, I cut all emotional ties and became the person that I tried out running my whole life.  

Do not worry, I am still a Haven and will keep my family safe even if that means that I have to stay away. I am a pin cushion and can take all the needles they cannot even from a distance. Just do not judge my deformed parts and holes.  

Later, I was finally able to stay at one place for four years...high school. Only this place filled me with more needles than I had space for. More people came into the picture and my family expanded for a year, and I became smaller to give room for the newcomers.  

The newcomers stayed for a year and my needles stabbed them and my family. But I finally thought I slayed all the parasites and diseases attached to my family. But that’s when I realized I missed one, myself.  

I was absent a lot that year to make room for them. When they left, they left a rash, one that would not stop itching and the loud voices did not grow quieter at night.  

A preacher came along this one withered of age but rarely spoke this was my great grandpa. This one intrigued me, as it chipped my hardened shell. I read the bible to him whenever I could. Even though I did not understand it, I knew the withered preacher did. Soon the preacher took his last breath, and I watched as his body was covered in a black tarp and wheeled out of the house. Others cried but I did not for the withered man lived a long life and his wife passed couple months prior and now he was with her.  

Our home was quiet after that, as it was quite empty. Three kids gone and a faint memory of a holy man lingered. It was not my last nor final account with death. As later that year my mentor died of cancer. I watched as he grew weaker as the cancer took his body, he was no longer the strong person I always admired and looked up to. His death was the reason I joined the Army and stayed. I watched as he turned into a ghost attached to a breathing mask. I wish I could tell him how much hope he gave me, but the thing about death is, it's that final goodbye that is definite.  

I do not like goodbyes, they are so final and that is why I never do them. As goodbyes hurt and I do not like pain. College was the worst goodbye, year one is hard enough without needing to transfer a year into the supposed best years of my life. Picture perfect does not exist, neither does innocence after its exposed to the harsh reality.  

Remember, I am a Haven, a sanctuary for everyone else but never myself. I will always be my family's safe place and take the needles they cannot even when I unintentionally stab them with my own. For now, I’ll stay away, my absence is a mercy to the pain I see in their eyes when I had empathy.  

For that is the purpose of a haven, we love most even when others think we do not.