The Mistakes Of Careless Mistakes

As soon as my eyes woke up to the bitter cold of the night and stars covered by black blanket of clouds, I knew that this was it. I had tried to prepare myself that day, but I was at school when it happened. The moment the intercom came over the classroom, “Hailey Wooldridge needs to come the office, her mom is here to check her out,” my heart stopped. I was able to make it to the office without losing my composure, but as soon as my eyes met my mom standing there with tears in hers I lost it. Right there standing in the school office, the food gates of heaven opened up in my eyes and I could not stop the rivers from flowing. My best friend since kindergarten had died. All the planning of moving in together when we went to college was down the drain. The late nights of watching horribly filmed scary movies was done. My heart was broken, and the pieces are still not taped together properly. Two days later was her funeral. Her mother had asked me to say a couple of words about her during the service, but the thought of standing next to her lifeless body talking about her and not to her made everything seem surreal. By the power of prayer and numerous amounts of tears, I stood up from my seat and walked lifelessly to the podium that viewed hundreds of people waiting to see what I had to say. I do not know how I got through that speech without hysterically crying, but somehow, I talked like I was having a conversation with Serra once again. In front of me, I

And then, the day I had feared of most, finally arrived. We lost our father, the only figure I truly felt safe with. After months of mourning and painful transformations, our mother fell sick. In those terrible days, days during which I was locked in the basement most of the time, for my safety and even more: for the safety of my family, I was incapable of helping. To this, I regret even today.

“It’s not me, it’s Jonathan. I think he’s really sick,” I say, tears coming to my eyes. I follow them as they make their way to Jonathan’s room. That’s when I hear my mother gasp and rush to his side. I quickly notice that his condition was worse than before and his skin was so hot it was turning red. My Father hurried to get the doctor and we set Jonathan back on the bed as I kept putting more wet rags on him. That evening when my Father got home, he had no doctor. “The soldiers arrested him because he couldn't pay the bills,” my father says hopelessly. The next morning, we had the terrible task of burying Jonathan, my loving, sweet, pesky-at-times, twin brother. That evening nobody really talked. Suddenly, there was a bang on the door and my cousin, Benjamin ran in. “They’re after me! Please

In the introduction, author Joseph T. Hallinan introduces the many ideas of mistakes that he fully covers throughout the book’s chapters. The author begins by describing mistakes and explains that much of the world construction is in such a way, that we expect to see things clearer and remember things better than we actually do. Furthermore, not seeing what is right in front of us is just one of a stunningly large array of shortcomings of the human brain that cause us to error. In Why We Make Mistakes, he provides the reader with an intriguing assortment of such failings. Hallinan explains human beings are partial, overoptimistic, hypercritical, downright irrational creatures of habit who are blissfully unaware of their limitations. All

I heard a feminine voice call out to me as I blazed out the front door. "Good morning Amber! Oh, where are you--" I cut her off with a sharp slam. I couldn't look back. With each step towards my car, I inhale painful sobs of air. I feel as if I don't know who I am, as if I was that 18 year old girl hearing the news of his death for the first time. I couldn't think of the name that belongs to me, or any one else but my father. Any face my subconscious offers had the resonance of a total stranger, then was replaced with the haunting image of

September 27th 2009. I was on my dad’s weekend and my mom was in the hospital for a weeks. I would visit her every day and sometimes bring her flowers. But on september 27th I woke up and walked into my living room and my dad was sitting on the couch looking sad. I asked what was wrong and then a knock was heard on the door it was my step dad and half brother. My step dad had puffy eyes he was crying. He told me to sit down and my brother came out and sat next to me. My dad looked at us and he spoke up your mother had just passed this morning. I was shocked I was hurt I was scared.I didn’t know if i should cry or run away. I’ve learned that losing someone you love is tough.

Twenty-one years old my middle brother began to drink constantly on a regular basis. Problems back home had influenced him in drinking, but also the people he correlated himself with back then. He took quite some time to overcome his addiction, but during his intoxicated moments he resembled that of Victor’s family. One night during my brother’s intoxication my brother had come down to our house to get away. When my brother rang the doorbell, I quickly rushed towards the door, opening it to find my brother’s eyes bloodshot red. Walking in face forwards he slowly took what felt like one hundred paces to our red couch, which already contained a few broken springs on the left cushion. Once reaching the target he plopped down like a heavy book

The next morning I didn’t want to get out of bed but I knew I had to. Whispering a prayer Lord don’t let me go down into the grave with my husband take me through this let the hurt- hurt until it’s over just get me through it day by day. Let me not be bombarded by people who mean well but say the wrong things during times such as this.

Warily, I walked over to where my father was standing right outside the school, waiting for Cole and I, when I saw he had shades on, I knew for sure that something was wrong, due to the fact he never wore shades. When we were to the pick-up my whole family was in there. Noticing, when I jumped in the pick-up, my mother also had shades on. Anxiously, I sat there attentively for the longest second of my life, then my father stammered to us that grandfather had passed away. Countless emotions were running through me, overwhelmed; I didn’t know what to think, raving; owing to they said he was going to be adequate, grieving; due to I didn’t get to talk t6o my grandfather before he passed

I made it upstairs, looking around. I didn’t see Mason, or my sister, for that matter. I wondered if maybe the drunk girl had been mistaken. I looked around at the closed bedroom doors. All was quiet. I didn’t think anyone was up there, not until I started to hear the moans and

We couldn’t see anyone. Than we heard a banging on the back door. We ran down the steps and locked that one too. We were wondering if we should call the cops. We all grabbed something and opened up the back door. No one was there. We opened up the front door. No one was there.We raced around the house and locked everything. We waited for Johnny’s parents to come home, but decided not to say anything. Later that night we went out again and walked down to a pizza parlor. We saw the guy laying down on a park bench looking as dead as a doorknob. We freaked out, but then Brett saw his chest rise and fall. Johnny said “He must’ve passed out.” Brett, the daring one, poked him. He sat up and gasped. Brett stumbled backwards. It looked as if the guy had risen from the dead. “ The guy screamed, and screamed, and screamed. We were scared out of our wits. We all looked at each other with the “what-the-heck-are-we-going-to-do-now?” look. He got up extremely slowly, slower than a turtle and his face was as pale as a ghost, his breathing was so shallow you could barely tell he was breathing at all. His eyes darted around at all of us as soon as he stopped wobbling. His face had the look of confusion and

I woke to shouting and banging on my door. I grabbed my pocket watch from the side of my bed; it read 4 o’clock. Who would be at my door this early in the morning? I thought. My body was dragged from the bed as I trudged along to my front door.

I went to sleep that night giddy from the long day. Needless to say, I didn’t know how much of a pain a younger brother was, but no matter how much I fought with Jordan, at the end of the day I knew the feeling of protection I felt from that first time I held him would never subside. He was my family and I would do anything for him and loved him

They swarmed around me. The tears felt like fire. I heard worried, faint murmurs. “she's not going to make it”, and they're reassuring my crying, helpless parents, “she's going to be alright”. Even though I was so young, I thought that this was it. The fear. The pain. The sorrow. The memories still haunt me to this day.

Ellie and I lay in our beds, neither one of us knew what to say. In the other room, our host parents were arguing. We didn’t know what about, but we knew it was serious. Then we heard a “THWACK” followed by silence. Ellie and I sat up in our beds and looked at each other, I could tell she was as scared as I was. “Was that? Did he just?” she asked me. Then the arguing started back up again. We calmed back down until we heard it again. “THWACK” We knew then, the noise we heard, was him beating her. We got up, our hearts racing; neither of us knew what to do. We got our nerves together to go get help. When we opened the door to our room we saw the children sitting on the couch crying out for their mother. I could see the fear in their face and I knew something needed to change.