The End to My World

“Daddy, daddy! Wake up!”, I said as I shook the big lump hiding under the covers, “Its Christmas Day!” The big lump started to move and groan. I pulled the covers off the lump and to my surprise I saw my mom lying there. She looked like she had been crying for a very long time and she was very upset about something. My daddy was no where to be found and my mom was not saying very much. “Mommy,” I said, “Where’s daddy?”

She continued to cry and finally gave me an answer, “He left.”

“Left?”, I whispered to myself. “Where did he go?”, I asked her.

“He had to go fight in the war in Iraq.”, she said. I did not really understand what she meant by that, but I knew it was not a good thing.

“Well, when is he coming back?”, I asked.

“I do not know”, she said “Soon, I hope.”

I left the bedroom and went downstairs. I laid down on the couch and stared at the ceiling. I thought about this whole war thing and tried to understand what it meant. I was only eleven and I had no idea what was going on overseas. I jumped off the couch, got down on my knees, and prayed to God. I asked him to help me and keep my dad safe. Although it was Christmas, I could not think of anything but my dad.

I crawled back up on the couch and started to cry. Eventually I fell asleep and did not wake up for a few hours. I was really tired because I stayed up most of the night waiting for Christmas day to come. I awoke at around two o’clock and noticed that my mom had finally come downstairs. She was sitting in a chair drinking her coffee and watching CSI Miami. She noticed that I was awake and came over and sat down next to me.

“I love you”, she said in a soft voice.

“I love you too”, I replied back to her.

She reached out and gave me a big hug. We must have been hugging for ten minutes because neither of us wanted to let go of each other. We talked for a long time and she explained to me what was happening in Iraq. She told me that my daddy may never come home and that he could die over in Iraq. My biggest fear went from spiders to never seeing my dad again. Losing my dad was a hard thing to face. I kept telling myself it was a dream, but I knew I would eventually have to face the fact that my dad may never be there to help me with algebra or to take me to father-daughter dances. Millions of emotions were running through my mind; sadness, anger, frustration. I did not know what to do with myself. It was hopeless.

As I grew older, I began to lose all hope in my dad coming home. I spent little time at home helping my mom and lots of time hanging out with my friends. I made the wrong friends and began to get into some pretty bad stuff. My grades dropped and I started to drift far away from God. I eventually became angry with God and hated him for taking my dad away. I teased innocent kids and got in trouble all the time. My mom was working harder than ever to support us and she was struggling in every aspect of her life. My mom and I shared one difference and that was that she still had faith that my dad would come home sooner or later. She still loved God and trusted him.

One afternoon when I was sitting in detention, the office got a call from my mom. They told me that I needed to go home immediately. I ran home and saw my mom sitting and staring at a piece of paper.


“What is it?” I asked her.

“A letter from your dad’s best friend in Iraq. He wants to know if he may come and stay with us for awhile.”, she said excitedly.

“Well, when does he come?” I asked

“In two weeks.” She said “We will need to clean this place up and get our acts together. Ok?”

“Yes mom”, I said firmly.

The next two weeks were very exciting for my mom. She was going to find out everything about my dad. How he was, what he looked like, if he missed us. She couldn’t wait. I was happy that I was going to meet one of my dad’s friends, but I had a feeling he was not coming just to meet us. The two weeks passed by slowly and the day he was to arrive finally came.

Knock! Knock! Knock! As soon as my mom heard this she ran to the door. She opened the door and standing there was a tall man, in his thirties, light brown hair, and big beautiful blue eyes. He said his name was Mike and he came inside with several bags on his back. We showed him his room and then sat down and drank coffee. When talking about my dad he used the word “was” way too much for me. That made me really nervous that we were going to get some bad news about my dad.

“So Mike, how’s Tom?”, my mom asked anxiously. He looked puzzled at this question and took awhile to answer.

“Were you not informed that Tom passed away 2 years ago?” My mom went in a state of shock and did not say anything for probably twenty minutes. Once she had realized what he had said she began to cry. Mike and I tried to comfort her, but we both new there was nothing else worse than losing your soul mate.

Mike decided to stay with us for a couple of weeks. We never really found out why we were never notified about my fathers death. It turned out that my dad was buried in a cemetery in Kentucky along with two other soldiers that died in the war, but we decided to have a private funeral for him anyways.

My mom and I had a long road of sadness in front of us. Upon learning of my father’s death, I found my faith in God to be a lot stronger than it had been the last few years and I slowly began to turn my life around. Although all the struggles me and my mom were going through, we always knew that we had each other and our faith in God to rely on.


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