My Worst Betrayals

No one was getting along, and he was drinking more after the death of my grandfather. We had been is Yosemite for a few days and it was our last night. We decide to go eat dinner and play cards together. From the start he had already made fun of my brother and had been putting my mom down. So much so, that before I could finishing dealing the cards, eli was leaving and my mom was silent. I forgot what I said now, but I remember the response, and the look I got. After I heard the words everyone stopped moving. I held half the deck in my hands, Eli stood, half way through pushing in his chair, and my mom looked up in shock. He didn't say anything else to me, just stared. At first, I don't think I really processed what he said, but that night I really thought about it. I realized then that my dad was truly gone. He wasn’t a dad anymore, he was a strange, someone I no longer knew. I promised myself that week that I need to grow up, and let go of the believe that my dad was suppose to be someone I looked to for advice and help. Now, I do most things for myself. It hurts the most when I see my brother. He used to be so fun, and outgoing, and now, I can see the impact my dad has had on his feelings. It hurts because he has had to grow up earlier that I had to. I’m still not quite there yet, and I still struggle a lot with everything, but I'm figuring things out, and needless to say, I grew up that

Those two years came and went until one day dad received a phone call from grandma, she needed us. Uncle Tim and she had an argument about his wife and her children, they were living with her until they had their new house built and something blew up. Without a second glance my uncle and his family packed up everything and left. Grandma did not make her own food, she did not shop for her own groceries, she was purely dependent on her son, and she never had any reason not to be, because he was always there for her. Grandma was alone for the first time in a long long time. All it took was for a phone call from grandma to have dad running over there, leading to the realization that dad did not talk to grandma for two years not by his choice but because grandma had not reached out to him

The summer of 2005 was supposed to be great, I had survived my freshman year of college, and things were starting to get better until the phone rang at 2 AM on June 20th. All I could hear was my mom weeping. It was my uncle from India; he had phoned to let my mom know that her sister had been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. My mom and I left for India the next day to be with her. For nearly nine months, my aunt complained of unremitting dull lower abdominal pain, lack of appetite, and unexplained weight gain. She was under the care of physicians at her local clinic regarding her health concerns; however, her case was not investigated thoroughly on time. My aunt and I were really close and seeing her spirit and body so broken down

We had just moved in March 2007 into my new house that my grandpa had built for us. I was so happy because I wanted to be closer to my grandma and grandpa. My grandpa was finishing up our house and his hip started hurting so he and my grandma went to the doctor. My mom was really stressed out because she didn't want anything bad to happen to him. One morning in April of 2007, my grandma and grandpa got a call from the bone specialist and they said that he had bone cancer and his hip was destroyed from it. Within the next few days they were planning hip replacement surgery. He had the hip replacement surgery and had to walk with a walker. Then things got worse because the cancer had now spread to his lungs and was stage 4 cancer. Within the next few months he had a massive stroke. Four days later my mom finds out my dad had stage 4 colon cancer and will not make it very long. One day later my grandpa took his last breath while holding my grandma’s hand. My mom was very upset about my grandpa dying and my grandma was screaming for him to come back. They had to take my grandma into another room so the funeral home could come in and get the body. My dad was still doing good at this time but then things changed.

I had decided to follow the path of an elementary school teacher so that I would be off, when my daughter was off from school. I began teaching the year she entered Kindergarten. I bought a house and I taught for three years before a friend asked me to move back to Cozumel to help her run her internet sales tour company. My daughter and I moved back to Cozumel. A few years later, I met and married truly the best person, inside and out, that I know. We lived there for 6 years and had planned on moving back to the US in August of 2010 for my daughter to attend high school in the US. Unfortunately, and very unexpectedly, my father passed away. He had a heart attack and had some stints put in. The doctors were telling us he was going to be moved out of the Intensive Care Unit and into a room. I spoked to my dad on the phone daily and he kept insisting everything was fine, but after a few more days in ICU, I decided I needed to come see him and two days later, with my sister and I at his side, he passed away. He seemed very healthy and was very proactive in getting checkups so it came to a shock to all of us. My stepmother was so used to my dad doing everything, she didn’t even know how to access their bank accounts online. She had no clue about the bills or where to even find them. My sister, who was very close to my dad both emotionally and financially totally lost it. Again, I was faced with being the “strong one” who picked out a casket, chose songs for the service and wrote the obituary among other funeral duties. Seeing how lost both my stepmother and sister were, I decided to move back to Texas that same month of May instead of waiting until August. My husband moved to Texas the following year and here we have been ever since. My daughter finished high school and went to college as planned. Since

Then, my mom had just arrived from work, at Banner Gateway as a microbiologist, and a future Physician Assistant. Since she had just come home, she was extremely exhausted after working from 7:00 p.m to 6:00 a.m, so she went straight to sleep. After the most amazing breakfast ever, my dad, little sister and I left the house at 7:53 a.m, as I remember exactly. Everything was perfectly normal, until my dad got a call. We still hadn’t left our neighborhood when my aunt had ever so mysteriously called my dad screaming over the cell phone. After hearing this, I knew something really terrible happened and would effect my family forever. I wasn’t sure what happened, but I was willing to figure it all out. My aunt lived in the same neighborhood as my family, so we turned the car around and zoomed towards her house as fast as we could. As my father opened his door and hustled out of the car, I had

Just before the my first day of middle school, my Aunt was admitted into the hospital. She had a gruesome battle with colon cancer for the past 18 months. She had been to the hospital many times before, had large amounts of her intestines removed, and lived to tell the tale. Sadly, this was not one of those times. This was my mother’s sister, and she drove to the Akron hospital to visit her. She came home that evening and sat me down, and I knew from the grave look on her face that something was wrong. “Justin, Aunt Patti isn’t coming home.” I cried and reasoned and asked why the doctors couldn’t do anything. My mother could not give the answers I so desired. I cried myself to sleep. The last seven days of my aunt’s life were spent in hospice. She was on an large amount of painkillers so she couldn't feel any more pain. Her eyes were closed and couldn’t talk, she was in an almost comatose state. I remember walking into her room for the first time. I’d never seen more love in one place. Her husband sat and slept in a chair beside her bed. We all were talking to her and joking and laughing about the good times had. The doctor said she couldn’t hear us, but that didn’t stop us. Any time she exhaled or let out a subtle grunt or moan, that was our sign that she was listening, trying to

My real dad that is. We always used to get questions like “which dad?” Our answer was either “my real dad” or Preston. It is not easy living between two houses and having to pack up your clothes and things every other weekend gets pretty exhausting. My sister Aleah and I did not hold the grudge against my dad for leaving us, but when it is written on papers that you have to go, you have to go. This time around it was different. I was praying every night that things would get better because I could not imagine going through this a second time. I was not ready for my mom to tell me that it has come to this situation again. As all stories have their sad parts, this one of course does. I began to pack up the things in my room and I would cry as I did. My mom had found an apartment that she could afford for her, aleah and I. My sister and I were excited about moving because we had been in the same house for the last 14 years and we wanted a change. Only we had forgot the reasoning, the splitting of our family. I thought to myself “why?” “Why does this have to happen to my family.” Everyone deserves to be happy in life. When we moves to the new apartment, I watched my mom cry for weeks and weeks. I always felt like no one knew the pain that my family went through. I never took my

The environment that I grew up in at home was very hostile. When I was growing up, I was always surrounded by domestic violence, and verbal abuse. Both my family and my home were always filled with so much sadness, pain, and fear. My home was no longer a safe haven where I could escape distress, but instead a place that I had dreaded and feared. Since I had constantly lived with domestic violence, my mother would always walk around the house with gashes on her face and bruises all over her body, but she would somehow manage to get through the excruciating pain. Until one day, when I got the most horrific news that I have ever received in my entire life. Both my mother and my stepfather were both victims of a fatal car accident. Although, always

Claire and I had just come home after tennis practice. When we walked into our apartment we saw that our mom had made a huge fancy meal for us, and I had a small feeling that something was up. My mom looked at me with eyes that looked somehow guilty, but everything seemed fine I guess. After we finished eating we were very tired, so Claire and I went to our separate rooms. Not long after laying down, my dad came in and told me we needed to talk about something. He wanted to talk to me and Claire separately, so we walked downstairs to a private community room in our apartment. He had never done this before and I didn’t know what was wrong, so my heart began pounding loudly in my chest. When I sat down and he told me the news, the pounding stopped. My heart sank. He said that our family couldn’t afford to go to Cathedral anymore, so my sister and I would have to switch schools and attend Sartell High School that year. I walked upstairs slowly afterwards and fell on the floor in my room. I stared at the ceiling waiting for Claire to be told. I don’t think I really believed what my father said to me at the time. I tried not to think. I just

My mom is like a little ray of sunshine. She shines light on every inch of darkness. Back in 2013, our lives seemed so grim. My great grandmother had passed away, our uncle got into a car accident that could have been fatal and my dad went under the knife at the hospital for about three times due to complications. Just when we thought that things couldn’t possibly get worse, my grandmother fell and fractured her spine. Boy oh boy. I wanted to jump off a cliff! My mom was the one who pulled me aside and showed me the light at the end of the tunnel. “Your grandmother is in a better place. Your uncle, well, at least he didn’t die, right? And your dad is going to recover. You just have to be positive.” Those statements were more powerful than any counsellor and any friend. There’s never been a time where I didn’t feel better after speaking to my

My first loss was my great grandmother Lena. This lady never allowed me to go lacking with anything. She could not cook during this time of my life due to a stroke. However, if I said that I was hungry grandmother would have my grandfather to prepare a full meal for me even though it was late night. Did I say the meal was cooked after 12 midnight? As time passed my mother, who was her granddaughter, began saying that grandma was not doing well and that she had been diagnosed with cancer. I couldn’t quite figure out the extent or depth of the disease but one new that it was not good. Watching tears flow from my mom over the illness and suffering. Finally, one day mom called and tells my father that grandmother is requesting to see me at the hospital and for him to bring me. As I prepared to go, mom calls back and state that there is no need to come. But somewhere down on the inside of me; I still wanted to go and see my

When I got the phone call that my dad was dead I could not believe it. I became overcome with denial “No, not my dad, he wouldn’t leave me!”. I called his phone, hoping with all of my soul that he would answer the phone like he always did, greeting me with a joke of some sort. This was not the case, so I broke down. It felt like my heart was ripped out of my body and stomped on. I have always been a daddy's girl so at first I did not know how I was supposed to go on. It had always been ‘Roland and Hannah’ for anything: partners for games at home, driving together, and many other things. He was my biggest teacher and my other half. I quickly became overcome with denial “No, not my dad, he wouldn’t leave me! He knows how much I need him!”.

This lead to the choice of moving out of state, from literally all of the rest of our family is, and to Ohio. The move happened right before I started preschool, so I was around four years old at the time. We found a relatively cheap farm style house, in Liberty Center. Liberty Center has a population of around 2,000 people, so we got to know most of the town and everyone at school. Aside from being thousands of miles away from the rest of our family, we lived a generally comfortable life for six more years. When I was about ten years old, my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. We were all told everything would be okay, and that the cancer would be taken care of. For the next couple of years, things started to take a steady decline in events. After my mother’s cancer treatment, she caught a staph infection and became sick again. After being released from the hospital, my mother was transferred to a nursing home for treatment and physical therapy. She was there for many months and came home for holidays. In the beginning of April, 2009, she was cleared to stay at home permanently. She was still hurting even at home, and through many nights I could hear her screaming in pain downstairs in the middle of the night. Exactly two weeks after she

Growing up in my house hold was almost like any other; my dad went to work every day early in the morning and came home around six o’clock and my mom a stay at home mom who took care of her six children myself included of course. Until late August of 2005 that is when my whole life changed in just a flash. It was a normal Saturday morning or so I thought: I was watching cartoons in my room waiting for breakfast when all of a sudden I heard a loud scream and crying coming from my parent’s room and heard my mom shout to my second eldest brother “Jeff call the Pastor NOW!” I got up and ran into their room and watched as my mom sobbed into my dad’s arms wrapped around her and tears filled his eyes as well. In that moment I knew something was horribly wrong. I looked up and got the courage to ask what was wrong and my dad told me the news. My brother, who was eight years older than me, had passed away that morning. Nothing was the same after that our family was no longer whole.