15 minutes later, we were all sitting down in the living room watching the Titanic. I took a bit of pop corn at the same time my dad did, and our hands brushed past each other’s. We looked up at each other and laughed. It was good to have a little laugh after a depressing period of time. My dad was always fun to talk to like my sister, but he was really different. He was one of those dads that were entertaining, always making a joke of everything to make the situation happy. He always knows when it’s the right time to talk or make someone feel better. Especially, Sadie and I. When the movie was over it was around 12:00.
“Anyone hungry?” he asked us. My sister and I both looked at each other.
“Not really, too much pop corn.” She said looking at me to answer his question too.
“Yea, me neither. I had a lot of pop corn and soda!” I said laughing.
“Aah, yes. The junk food fills it all!” he said smiling. My dad walked down stairs to his home office where he did his work. Mean while, my sister and I walked upstairs and across the hallway to my room. We both sat down on my bed and looked straight at each other with no emotion.
“So what’s going on hun?” she asked nicely.
I paused for a moment. “I miss her a lot Sadie.” I said with my voice shaking and tears filling up again.
“I know I know babe. I miss her a lot too. I hate to tell you this, but now there’s no way to go back in time. It’s time to move on and live our lives. Like dad always says; we have to live our lives to the fullest so that mom will be proud of us.” She said winking at me to make me stop crying.
“I know but it’s so hard. I don’t know if I can do it. I mean how am I supposed to think straight in school when I get good achievements? Instead of having 2 parents sitting there clapping…” and I burst into tears spitting out the rest, “there… will only be… 1 parent… and an empty chair.” I was gasping for air and trying to stop the tears. My sister grabbed me to her and pulled my head to her chest. She sat there rocking me back and forth like my mom used to do when I was a baby and I was crying. I sobbed and sobbed. We sat there for about 20 minutes. I could feel my dad come upstairs and look into the room but walk away sadly knowing that I was crying because of my mom. When I was finished, I walked across the room and grabbed a tissue to blow my nose and wipe the tears. I walked over to my bed and sat down.
“Now, we need to talk but you have to promise you won’t cry, or I can’t help you with this.” She said looking in my eyes.
“I promise.” I said softly, not sure if I could keep it.
“Your first step is to get over the fact that our mom is…dead.” She said trying not to make it hurt me even though it did. “There’s no more crying, and no more feeling sad. There is a reason God gave us life and it wasn’t to be sad. He gave us life to live it not to regret it. We will not live our lives and not regret them. To start out, we have to forget about everything that just happened. Now I know that this is something new, and you don’t really know how we’re going to live our normal routine like we always do, but there’s just going to be a few changes. For example; since mom always cooked and cleaned, we will start taking turns giving ideas for food, cooking, cleaning, and washing the dishes. Do you understand where I’m coming from?” she said.
“Yes.” I said softly. The tears were gone and the sadness floated away to somewhere else, soon to come back later.
“We will work on the changes together, so you won’t be alone on that. But for the part where you have to stop crying and feeling sad, you’re gonna have to stop thinking about it once and for all and ignore it until it’s necessary. It would be necessary for like… a grave proposal. Do you still understand me?”
“Yes I do.” I said looking straight at her.
“Another hard obstacle is that when you’re at school, people might talk about their parents, or ask you about yours. You are going to have to actually say, “My mom passed away and not cry”. If it bothers you that much, then you can say, “But I prefer not to talk about it” and they should be okay with that. When they talk about their parents…and I mean both not just 1, then you have to deal with that and flow with the conversation because you can’t just come up out of random and say, “Oh stop talking about your parents because I lost one of mine” to every student, now can you?” she said grinning.
“No, I can’t.” I said smiling at her because of her sense of humor.
“And for right now, that’s all that we have to do. I must warn you right now that the beginning is always hard and you have to deal with it. But always know this; when something bad happens, you can always find a way to get around it no matter what it is. Do you understand that?”
“Yes I do.” I said
“Okay, do you have any questions on what to do?” she asked.
“No Dr.Phil.” I said smiling my funniest smile.
“It’s actually Dr. Sadie, thank you very much!” she said falling on her back on my bed laughing! I joined her too and we sat there laughing and laughing. We chatted a little bit about some fun memories, with not only my mom but with just her and me. I knew it would be really hard, but I knew that I could eventually make it through this. I was just going to have to flow along with where life would take me until I reach the end.
Chapter 3
It was a nice warm September evening and I was sitting outside on my porch watching my neighborhood. On the street to my right, kids were riding their bikes and throwing water balloons at each other. I smiled at the sound of their laughter and happy screams in the distance. I looked to my left and my neighbor, Ms. Maureen was standing next to her dog named Linas, watering her beautiful flower filled garden. She looked at straight at me and I waved. She waved back.
“How are ya?” she yelled across the sidewalk.
“Doin’ great but I could be better. How about you?” I replied getting up and walking across the sidewalk.
“I’m doin’ okay. The weather is nice isn’t it?” she asked. I could tell she didn’t really want to ask me how I was dealing with the fact that my mom had passed away.
“Yea it really is pretty out here.” I said to her smiling. From the side of my eye I could catch a glimpse of a firefly floating in the air near Linas. Linas looked up at me, leaped on my leg and licked my hand that was just hanging there.
“Aww, thank you boy.” I said smiling thoughtfully.
“Yea, he’s been a naughty boy these days haven’t you?” she said looking down at him.
“Yea, well we can’t expect any of them not to!” I said humorously.
“Yes that’s right!” she said chuckling. She grabbed the empty watering can and began walking up her porch. I started walking down the sidewalk towards my porch.
“Well sweetie, I will see you later, okay?” she yelled.
“Okay! See ya!” I yelled back. I got to my porch and sat down on the last step. I looked around my neighborhood and the kids had already gone inside and the leftover water balloons that had already been popped, sat there on the grass abandoned. The neighborhood was quiet and no one was outside. I heard rustling in the bushes so I kept on staring at the bush. The rustling continued for about a minute. Then something started to come out and I heard laughing.
“Dude, don’t be stupid!” a guy’s voice said laughing.
“I’m not you’re just pushing me into a freakin’ twig that’s right next to my ear!” he replied. Then I heard a lot of mumbling that I couldn’t make out. Suddenly, someone’s hand was sticking out of the bush and then a leg came out. After a few minutes of struggling, 2 boys came out of the bushes with leaves in their hair and twigs sticking out of their shirts. They looked like they had just come out of a battle…in a forest! One boy had brown wavy hair that slid off to the side, hazel eyes, a couple of freckles under his eyes, and a tan that suited him perfectly. To be honest, this guy was pretty cute. The guy on the other hand had black hair that he previously gelled up spiky (but now messed up), brown eyes, and he was a little chubby which was very unattractive. I stared at them for a while as they dusted their selves off and picked the leaves and twigs off of their selves. When they were finished, they noticed me sitting there so they stared at me and back at each other. They both walked over to me and stood right in front of me.
“Hey, umm… my name’s Christopher Hunting and my friend’s name is Mathew Smith but you can just call us Chris and Matt. I was just wondering if I could ask you where the hell we are because we were running from our friends because we were playing dead man and we ended up getting lost.”
“Oh, I’m Caroline Mathis and you’re in St. Martin’s street.”
“Nice to meet you but s***!” he said. “Matt, have you ever been to St. Martin’s street?” he asked Matt, yelling across the sidewalk while Matt walked over to us.
“No! I told you we shouldn’t have gone too far!” Matt yelled at Chris.
“Well, there was no way I was gonna lose that game to a bunch of retards.” He said. Then Matt looked at me.
“Who is she?” he asked Chris.
“I just met her stupid. Her name’s Caroline.” He said looking at me smiling.
“Oh, hi! I’m Matt.” He said smiling.
“Nice to meet you!” I said smiling back.
“Now, is there a CVS near here because I only know my way home from that CVS?” Chris asked me.
“Yea, just go down that street and turn a left. Then keep on walking until you see a sign that says, “Pedestrians walking.” Right next to that sign there is a left turn. Take it and keep walking forward. Then CVS will be right in front of you.” I replied.
“Okay, thanks! Hey, uhh do you go to Morter Valley High school?” Chris asked me.
“Yes I do. I’m going to 10th grade.” I said.
“Oh awesome, I am too.” He said looking into my eyes. His eyes were so deep and attracting that I couldn’t stop looking at them. He melted me into him somehow and his gentle smile was like a magnet that I wasn’t able to get away from. “Anyways, I guess I will see you around, thanks for the directions.” He said as he and Matt walked down the sidewalk.