This was. She couldn’t take it anymore. Sarah stared at the tear-stained pillow as she wondered why her life was such a mess. Why couldn’t he have a mother who really cared or a father who was not addicted to drugs and who actually had time for his children?
Sarah was 14 years old. She attended online school whenever she had time to care for her two younger siblings. With her mother busy with her 9 to 5 job and a father who hardly ever came home, she had given up even hoping that her family would ever be the way it was. Every day was a struggle. He woke up at 6 as soon as the youngest John, who was one, woke up. Making breakfast, sweeping the floors, doing the dishes took up most of the day. When she had time to sit down for school work, she was so exhausted that her eyes closed as soon as she sat down.
Then his grades dropped, from 96 to 85. He stopped eating, from three servings to one. Fighting insomnia that, along with depression, made it impossible to sleep more than an hour each night. All of these changes were subtle, but they were there all the time and she fell apart, piece by piece.
One hot day while washing dishes with a 2-year-old clinging to her leg, Sarah felt extremely light. Putting down the plate she was washing, she reached for the counter, but before she could grab it, she passed out and fell to the floor.
Sarah woke up in a hospital very close to her home. It was neither big nor cozy. Tucked into a small room with three other patients and with only a curtain to separate them, Sarah found herself with an IV attached to a saline drip. She soon learned that her mother had admitted her to the hospital but had quickly left due to work. As she sat alone reflecting on her miserable life, she saw the girl next to her who also didn’t have any relatives by her side. She didn’t look much older than Sarah, but she had bruised skin and slap marks on her bony arms and legs.
Sarah had a condition known as hypertonic cardiomyopathy that had not been seen in previous scans and X-rays taken during her childhood. The condition worsened with stress, which was the cause of his collapse that very day.
Living in a poor hospital with no electronics, no family, all Sarah could do was talk to other patients. The girl next to her named Emily and Sarah soon became firm friends and Emily allowed Sarah to enter the deepest and darkest secret of her existence.
Emily lived in a large family, something Sarah had often wanted. He had loving parents and a dog. However, two years after Emily moved to California, her parents lost their lives in a car accident leaving her with her aunt and uncle according to her will. Every night after her aunt fell asleep her uncle would go up to her room and try to force her sexually. Sarah was so scarred mentally that she couldn’t summon the courage to tell anyone. However, when she finally warned her uncle that she could say it, he began to beat her. He broke two of her ribs, fractured her femur, and left her with marks that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
Hearing this, Sarah was on the verge of tears. Words could not describe the great amount of pain and sympathy he was feeling.
Sarah thought that even though her parents weren’t really very actively involved in her life, she was never raped or even laid hands on her. It really made him realize that you should never be ungrateful.
Even if you have nothing, that nothing means the world to someone else!