Personal Narrative: Becoming A Beemaker

I thought that they were happy to see me, but when I opened the door to are shack, I saw that everything we owned was neatly packed in cardboard boxes.

I thought they were happy to see me, but when I opened the door to our shack, I saw that everything we owned was neatly packed in cardboard boxes. I was shocked! We were moving? Since when? I walked further into our shack and saw Roberto and Papa carrying boxes to the Carcanchita. I then saw Mama holding her pot walking over to the Carcanchita very carefully trying her best to not step on one of my younger sibling’s toys.

After being dropped off from dance late at night, I was expecting to walk into a silent house where everyone was asleep. Instead, I walked into my living room to find the rest of my family sitting on the couch with the television off, which was strange for my family. It was clear they were waiting for me to get home, so I sat down too. My mom and dad exchanged a look and a sigh then turned back towards my brother and me. They babbled absently for a few minutes, then, my mom quickly spit out the words, as if ripping off a Band-Aid, "We are moving back to Arizona." There was a brief moment of stunned silence before I burst into tears. I could not imagine why my parents would decide to separate me from my best friends six months before we were supposed to

It all started on a warm sunny day, my dad had just arrived from Michigan. He came into the house gave my siblings, my mother and me a hug and told us the big news. “We are moving to Michigan” he said. He said it so calmly as if expecting my siblings, my mother and myself to react in a good way. Immediately I started to panic, I didn’t want to leave the place I grew up in. I was only eleven years old, I didn’t know how the people in Michigan would be. Finally I spoke “ I don’t want to move dad, I love it here!” which he responded with “I’m sorry but we are going to move because we can’t afford to live here anymore” He said this so emotionless as if not knowing how this could affect me. I hardly got any sleep that night for the fact that my parents were arguing for what felt like all night, but in reality was just an hour.

This was a blessing in disguise that at the time I did not see. As a six year old I wasn’t thinking of why we were moving I had the selfish thought that my parents might have done this to punish me somehow, I was utterly wrong. Not so long ago my parents explained to me what made them move. They had thought about it for a while, but never had a solid reason to move until this happened. It was on the way from dropping my sisters and I from school. My parents were headed home when they stopped at a red light. Chatting about the usual my mom noticed my dad had gotten suddenly quiet and asked what was wrong. What my father said was, “whatever you do, do not turn around.” My mother turned around and saw two dead bodies just rotting in a parked car two blocks away from the elementary school that all her children went to. This was the deciding factor in the

I acted excited around my parents because they did not need the extra stress. But, deep down in my heart, I was very upset, and I had no one to talk to about it except my friends. I felt cold. Like I had no home anymore.

There were six fire trucks in my driveway from all different townships. We ended up having to park down the street in my neighbors yard. My dogs were at Kevin’s house for the time being. I noticed my parents were already outside, so I went up to them. The flames were mostly gone by the time I had showed up and they were trying to get things cooled down and cleaned up from all the sludge that had become of it. My grandparents got out to see how everything was going, and then hours later, when the firefighters had declared it safe enough, my family and I went into the house we had all spent ten years of our life in. The house I walked into was one I did not recognize. Everything was out of place and soaking wet from all the water they had to use to put out the fire. Even the items that weren’t burnt were still damaged from either the smoke or all the water. Luckily, my door had been closed to my room, which had saved some things. Unluckily, most of my personal possessions were ruined. My clothes, my journals I had kept up with, and most of the things I held dear to me were gone in a

We didn’t know what to take with us. Mom and I hurried from room to room, anxiously looking at portraits, furniture, and chandeliers. We knew that we couldn’t take them and feared that we would never see our home or belongings again. We grabbed necessities such as medications, clothes, electronic devices, and family photos.

It was a beautiful, sunny day in South Florida. I was six years old, playing by the pool with my new puppy. I loved swimming in the pool almost every day after school. I also enjoyed going out on our boat after school or crossing the street and going to the beach. My father came home one evening with some interesting news. Now, I do not remember exactly how I felt about the news at that time, but it seemed like I did not mind that much. He had announced that we were going to move back to my birth country, Belgium. I had been living in Florida for five years and it was basically all I had known so I did not know what to expect. I had to live with my mom at first, and then my sister would join us after she graduated high school and my father

Growing up was though. The hardest part was learning how to dwell with unpredictability. When I was a kid, it enchanted me. I was fascinated to observe how randomness could yield starry skies, carve underwater caves or compose the most fascinating stories. Still, I wouldn't let uncertainty flow through my veins. I craved for maintaining the status quo on whatever was within my reach. I built LEGO's exactly as the manuals suggested, did group projects my way and only accepted challenges I could handle. As a child, I was afraid to take a leap beyond my safe boundaries. However, I was obligated to flee far away from them.

Back then it seemed like every day I received death threats. Eloquently worded and anthrax sprinkled letters that consisted of only one completely capitalized word scribbled over and over again, "HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK," and occasionally pipe bombs delivered to my doorstep inside of whipped cream pies. It was easy to avoid getting blown up by clowns when their bombs were hidden so stereotypically.

I walked into our apartment to decide what I was going to do.  I sat on my squeaky old, dusty bed with outdated floral patterns. I kept thinking if I should tell them or not.  I finally decided not to.  It would stress them out and probably wouldn’t let me go either. I waited till after my family all were asleep and then I went out.  I walked down the same creepy staircase as before.

Having my dad around all the time wasn’t my everyday routine. I’d see him once or twice a week so I wasn’t very much used to see him every day. One day I came home after school and he and my mom were on the balcony talking, the notice I was staring, they both looked at me and called for a family meeting by the tone of their voices I could tell there was

Devastated, I ran to my room gushing my eyes out. All these emotions going through my head of how my life would be without my parents in the same room or even house. From what I remember it all started about mid-June, the weeks before that were crucial. My parents would always argue over how to deal with a situation between me and my brother, Skyler. They hardly spoke to one another, but when they did they would just start bickering. I remember, one night after dinner they both went into ''their'' room with the door locked yelling at one another. Skyler and I didn’t know what to do, so we went downstairs and tried to figure out what was going to happen. With a scared tone I asked if mom and dad were going to get a divorce?" He answered back '' No, they love each other, they wouldn’t do that to us." That following night, was a school night everything was quiet except for my crying. I couldn’t sleep; all I was thinking about how it's going to affect my family.