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The Darkest Day: A Memoir

It’s a partly cloudy but terribly cold day. I’m running late for school and still have to scrape my truck windows of ice. I finally get there about five, maybe ten, minutes late to my U.S. Government and Citizenship class. The warm up on the board is only three simple questions and after answering them I quickly tune out of the class and into my book. I’m absorbed in reading when I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket, alerting me to a phone call. That’s strange, it’s my mom. I promptly ignore it knowing she knows I’m in class. Not two minutes later I receive a test from her, "911 call me." Confuse, I look up at Mr. P “My mom just told me to call her, it’s an emergency. May I?” Being my neighbor and knowing it wouldn’t be without good reason, he allows it.

   I call. And call. And call again. She doesn’t answer. After a few minutes of respite, my phone once again vibrates. Her voice is choked with tears. I can tell something bad has happened. “You need to come home now. Go to the office and check out, then come home.” She tells me.

   “What’s wrong? What happened?” I demand.

   “I’ll tell you when you get here. Just come home.”

   “I’ll see you soon.” Click.

   I run down to the attendance office with a backwards call of, “I have to go.” to Mr. P, but it’s closed saying to go to the main office, so I do. They ask if I’m Ashley Abbott and when I confirm as much hand me a white sheet of paper saying I could leave. So I do. I quickly walk to to my locker to grab my coat and gloves and, after slamming it shut, rush down the stairs. I’m begging to panic as the urge to run overcomes me. I’m suppose to have the daycare lab today so I stop for a split second to let Mrs. H know that I won’t be in today, “something is going on with my family.” is all I say as I finally give in to the urge and run to my truck. I quickly and easily unlock my beast and jump in. I make the rare decision to speed as I begin to think of something that could make my mom sound so pained. I nearly peal out of my parking spot and hit the road, running several stop signs on my way to get some answers.

   After what feels like forever I pull into the driveway, jump out of my truck and run into the house. “Mom, Mom?” I call. Nothing. I turn to close the front door to find Kim standing behind it, tears streaming down her face, and her lips trembling. “What happened?” I ask. She just shakes her head as a sob escapes her. Desperate to know I repeat my cry as I head down the hall. “Mom!” She’s coming out of her bedroom and we meet about half way. “What happened?”

   “Jeremy,” she stops to try to compose herself. I’m confused, why would she be crying like this over my uncle Jeremy? We never really got along. “Little Jeremy is gone.” She cries, “He died this morning.”

   “NO!!!!!” I scream as sobs rake my body and anguish thrashes my soul and I fall into my mother’s arms. That’s why she’s crying so hard. It isn’t Big Jeremy, It’s little Jer. It’s my happy cousin who was always more my brother. “Wh-what happened? How? Why?” I stammer, picturing a car accident or something equally horrifying.

   “He killed himself around three this morning.” She tells me, as more tears track down her face.

   I couldn’t have been farther off. Jeremy? Suicide? those two words shouldn’t even be in the same sentence, yet, here I am, and they are just that. Sobs take over and speech is no longer possible. My little brother and best friend committed suicide. How could he take himself away from me?

   After a few minutes mom says, “We need to go.” So we stand, and tearfully make our way to the car, and we go.

I know this site is for poetry but I felt like posting this memoir I wrote of the worst day of my life would help you to know me better, and to better understand some of my poetry. This truly was the darkest day.

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