It was March 23rd of 1990, a humid day which involved a mixture of happiness and sorrow. It was my 8th birthday, and I was hanging out with all my friends watching Tom and Jerry. We were all having tons of fun and then my mom brought out a huge ninja cake with edible shurikens. Everything at my party was amazingly set up and I felt like I could love my parents forever and hoped that nothing would separate us. Then, my mom came out with a huge box and my dad came with an even bigger box. My mom opened up her box, and out popped a tiny puppy. She explained to me it was a Pug and that I needed to watch out for her carefully. When I opened the other boxes, there were multiple dog care books and a pretty big cage. In that cage I could fit twenty boxes of pizza, because you know that’s what’s in right now. My birthday, or any other day there is a party, my life gets exciting. That’s always better than the same old me just going to school and watching television. Either way, I still enjoy my life with my beautiful parents and our new member of the family, the Pug. I was speechless when I received my Pug and when my dad asked what her name should be. I thought real hard and before I knew it, I named her Maya. Maya seemed like such a good name, but I couldn’t really make out my thoughts, because after Maya received her name, all of my friends ran up to her to pet her and greet her. Everything was so loud, kids screaming, and I could make out my father trying to muffle the sound with some ear plugs. I could clearly tell it wasn’t working when my mom came screaming out of the house and told all my friends to be quiet. The noise slowly died off and my mother went back inside. Everything resumed as it was and my father took Maya into the house before she had a heart attack. Then my mother returned with a kitchen knife, which was odd because it seemed too early to be cutting up the cool cake. She was walking towards the cake, but suddenly she turned and rushed towards me with that big sharp knife, and I was so struck with fear that I didn’t know what to do. I stood there dumbstruck, realizing this was my life changing in front of my eyes. My wish of our family remaining together and filled with joy and love was not going to be fulfilled. The only thing I could do was hope that my life was not going to end then and there. She was almost close to me, but in the distance I could hear Maya barking louder than any of the kids that were screaming and crying. The next thing I know, my dad rushes out and tackles my mom onto the ground and contained her from getting to the knife. One of my friends ran to my neighbors and told them, “Call the powice, Joey’s mom has gone cwazy.” Not much later, the police had arrived and took my mother into prison. My father then hugged me to make me feel better. It sort of helped, but yet again, not as much as it would’ve if my mom had hugged me. My life is going by, me without a mom and my dad ignoring me more and more as the years pass. I’m 14 now and I still miss my mom. All of my birthdays that I have had weren’t the same without my mom. My dad tried everything he could to get my mind off of her, but it seems that when we were all together, I spent the most time with my mom. My dad moved me out to Stockton, CA and I’m enjoying the time I have spent there. I’ve made new friends and adjusted to the small house. The house that I am currently living in has two bedrooms and a bathroom. The living room, the laundry room, and the kitchen are all combined; they don’t have walls to separate them. My life has been pretty normal since, I’ve been attending this one school, Nicholas High; it’s not like any of your average high schools. In this school we get in at 10 A.M. and we get out at 2 P.M.; everything is fun and we have decent lunches, and also the school is only a couple blocks from my house. Walking in the morning always gets my mind off of hard things that are happening in my life. So a regular day of mine would involve me waking up to my monkey alarm clock, and getting ready to start my day. I usually get up around seven ’o’clock, just so I can be able to run to the store or watch some television, which is something I do to also get my mind off of things. The year is 1996 and we really don’t have a lot of belongings, so I kind of just live with what I got. Every day before I go to school, I try to give a hug to my dad but usually he goes off to his room and ignores me. All the love that I used to get from my mom had covered for the love I didn’t receive from my dad. Now that she’s gone, I hardly get any love besides Maya. I’ve tried so hard to keep my dog alive, because she is the most important thing that I ever received from my mother. Maya has been doing really well, and she has grown a fair amount, but I’m pretty sure she won’t be growing anymore. Reason being, Pugs like her aren't very big. They can be fat, but that depends on the way you feed them. I also have to watch her when she drinks. Of her short snout, she has a risk of drowning while drinking. The only love I do get are from Maya and my best friend Cooper Kayne. Cooper Kayne had multiple ancestors that have served in the war, so he knows a lot about war and what to do in accidents. He told me before that his last name means warlike, and I believe him. I can still remember the first day we became so close, almost as if we were brothers. It was January 27th and I was sent to the supermarket to pick up some groceries. I was walking down the aisles and out of nowhere I hear a guy shout, “EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR, NOW!” I went as quickly as I could to the floor, and there was some kid near me in the same aisle. He seemed to be talking to himself but I heard the man with the gun walk right behind me and point his gun at an innocent woman asking for her money. She was nearly in tears, but I tried to look away and keep myself positive about the situation. When I looked towards the direction of the kid, he was gone. It had seemed that he saw an opportunity to get out of the store while the man was distracted. I would have done the same thing if it wasn’t for the fact that the man was not so far from me. I heard the ding-dong of when someone walks in through the double doors and the man seemed as if he was in a rush to get out of the store. He was grabbing a lot of stuff and getting his bag of loot, but just as he was about to walk out the door the kid came back with a knife. He had stuck it into the man’s arm, the one holding the gun, and the man was screaming in agonizing pain. The man had fainted, and soon the police arrived to take him to jail. I went up to the boy and asked him several questions, one which was just me asking if he wanted to hang out. He had told me yes, so I told him to meet me at Pizza Hut on Saturday. I went home with all the groceries to my dad and he had asked what took me so long. I explained to him but mid-story he left as if he didn’t really care. I just went to go see if Maya was ok, and she was. I didn’t really feel like I wanted to eat dinner so instead I just hung out with Maya. All that night I spent thinking about Cooper Kayne, and if he would like to be my friend or not. Well either way, the day had arrived and I had to get to Pizza Hut. I didn’t want to keep Cooper Kayne waiting so immediately I went to my dad and asked for a ride. He replied with a stern no, and I just walked calmly to the front door. He asked where was I going, and I simply replied with “I’ll be home soon.” As I slammed the door I heard Maya yelp. I wanted to go back and check on her, but I didn’t really have the time to. I was already running late and had to walk my way to the Pizza Hut, which was three blocks from my school. I basically had to sprint my way, in order to make it not so late. I had finally got there, when I saw that Cooper had already ordered. As I walked into the store, Cooper walked up to me to greet me. I greeted back and we had both sat down.
“Lovely day we are having,” I said.
“Yea and it’s pretty chilly in here,” Cooper said.
“Is the pizza any good?”
“Not really, but I don’t want to say that because it will hurt the company’s reputation.”
“Well that stinks, because I was hoping to enjoy this pizza with you.”
“Well maybe we could still en….”

Cooper was interrupted by a man, who was very tall and looked pretty shady. The man bent over and whispered into Cooper’s ear. I couldn’t make out what he had said, but after the man got up Cooper followed him. I followed him out the store and asked where he was going. He simply replied with, “I’m going home with my dad. I hope we can do this again someday.” I figured that the tall man was his father, so I just finished the leftovers before I left to my house.

It was a long walk home, and to this day I can still remember every bit of detail. It all started out as a normal walk, and I had figured that it would take me half an hour to get back home. The air was just right to keep me cool, but then out of nowhere a dark figure came hurdling towards me. I was so struck with fright that I couldn’t move away. I was knocked off my feet and onto the floor. My vision was all getting blurry, and the shadow was still unrecognizable to me. As I recall, I was kicked in the chest region multiple times. That had caused me to go unconscious. The next thing I remember was me lying on the cold street and the noise of cars honking. I had gotten up and saw that I had no clothes on whatsoever. The cars were all held up which, I think, was because of me. I had quickly run to my house, but on my way I was getting laughed at for being nearly in the nude. When I got home, I saw my dad and with tears in my eyes I hugged him. He pushed me away and just started to laugh at me. I had ran to my room and thought about what kind of a dad I had. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Maya with a patch over her right eye. She was whimpering when I went up to her. I had picked her up and placed her on my bed. I wanted to see what was wrong, so I decided to remove the patch just a little. Just as I was going to pull it off, my dad walked in and yelled, “What are you doing!”
“What do you think I’m doing, I’m tending the only thing in this house that shows me love!” I yelled.
“What do you mean? I love you and I always show you.”
“If by love you mean treat me like a dog. What did you do to her?”
“Well I had to punish you somehow, and that’s the thing you love the most in this house.”
“Well then I’m going to have a friend over today, and we are going to have a fun time together. I am going to go call him right now.”

I started walking to the phone with Maya in my hands. I dialed in Cooper’s number and was waiting until he answered. I heard someone pick up the phone, and I said, “Cooper?”
The answer I got back was, “Hello, who is this?”
“This is your good friend Joey.”
“Oh, what’s up?”
“Oh nothing you know, just wondering if you wanted to come and spend the night.”
“I would love to. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“I can’t wait.”

I was sitting on my couch with Maya, while my dad was cleaning the house. It had something to do with not making a bad first impression. I heard a knock on my door, and suspected that it was Cooper. I went to open the door and there he was, my best friend. I showed him the house and showed him everybody in it. Although, my dad wasn’t really interested, so I just went to my room and showed Cooper where we would be sleeping. We played a few games and then we just ended up falling asleep. Now, I’m just sleeping and replaying everything that happened on my 8th birthday. I had heard as if something was flicked on, and didn’t really open my eyes to see what it was. I heard a scream, I got up as fast as I could, and saw Cooper in the corner, and in front of him was my dad holding a knife. I saw Maya and she was barking, I just stood there shocked that my dad would do this. I saw tears in Cooper’s eyes and I did what any other good friend would do. I jumped on my dad’s back and as so he was staggering to the floor. I yelled for Cooper to get out, but he just sat there in tears wishing for his dad to be there. Maya came up to my dad and started biting his ankle. My dad screamed in pain and kicked Maya towards the wall. I was pretty sure she was dead. At that moment I realized two things. One, I was never going to get a loving family besides Maya and Cooper. Two, Cooper had a loving family and I know that I didn’t want to take him away from them. I just did what felt right and jabbed my dad’s eyes. He ran into the wall and fell backwards. The knife had stuck through his jugular, and into mine. The last thing I saw was Cooper getting up and going towards my phone, but before he turned and saluted me. I knew that it was my time and what I did was right. Everything was fading to black, but before I blacked out I saw my whole life flash right pass my eyes. I saw all the Maya and I were hanging out. It all seemed so nice until it got to the end when we both ended up losing our life. At least I got to feel what love felt like, and for that I thank you Maya.