Some stuff I found

Hey, I found this. I wrote it when I was 15. Enjoy.


A ringing phone is not an uncommon sound, especially in a house with 3 children like the one I live in. Someone is always trying to get a hold of my mother to chat, my brothers for play dates, or myself to baby-sit. So when the phone rang one Wednesday evening in February of 2003, my heart didn’t skip a beat. I didn’t rush to look at the caller ID or pick up the receiver. I just sat in front of the computer and continued to chat with my friends. I had no idea that what was on the other side of that phone line would change my life forever.
At 6:28 pm my mother hung up the phone slowly and turned toward me. I wasn’t facing her direction, but I could see her face in the reflection of the computer screen.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, still looking at her through the reflection in the monitor.
“Come sit down,” she said quietly.
“I am sitting,” I replied.
“Please,” she said, obviously not wanting to argue with me. “Come sit down over here.”
I felt short of breath all of the sudden. My heart started beating rapidly and my mind raced. What’s going on? Why am I freaking out? I don’t even know what she’s going to say yet!
But I knew. I tried to tell myself that maybe nothing bad had happened. Maybe she had some good news for me. When I looked into her eyes I knew this wasn’t the case. Maybe I just got in trouble at school or something. No, I never get in trouble at school. As much as I tried to shake the feeling, I knew exactly what my mother had found out over the telephone just a few minutes ago.
Mom called my brothers from their rooms and asked them to sit down next to me. Kevin, who was barely 12 at the time, hurried down the stairs and sat himself next to me hoping for some exciting news. Anthony, 8, followed his brother and took his seat by Kevin’s side. We all looked wide-eyed at our mother as a tear fell down her cheek.
“I’m sorry guys. Your dad died this morning.”
Nobody said another word. Kevin, who was probably closest of the three of us with my father, obviously wanted to be alone and headed up to his room. Poor Anthony, who barely even got to know his dad, tried to follow Kevin to his bedroom but soon realized that he didn’t want to play anymore. I sat alone on the couch now, watching my mother in awe. Why was she crying? She didn’t even like Dad. Isn’t that why she divorced him?
I could tell my mother was trying to think of the right thing to say, but nothing came out but “I’m sorry.” She, too, left for her room leaving me to sit and think. I didn’t cry for a long time. I just sat a stared at the wall in shock. How could this be happening? You always see these kinds of things on TV, but you never think they’re going to happen to you. I’d heard plenty of statistics about the death rates of smokers, but I never thought that would affect anyone I knew, much less my own father.
The day my father died I realized how much I used to take my life for granted. So many people had harder lives than my own, and yet I still took every chance I got to complain about little insignificant problems. I took the people in my life for granted, assuming that they would always be there for me to lean on. I never really appreciate everyone who cared about me until I lost the one who cared the most.