This is a response I wrote for my tenth grade English class. I thought I’d go ahead and share it with you. Please note, I don’t mean this to put a dampener on your day.

       Death is a varying factor in people’s lives – some people have never had some one they know die, some have been acquainted with funerals their whole life. And, in turn, grief varies in every person. Some people become numb and ignore the grief and some feel like life will never go on the same again. There are people who, when presented with a death, their personality changes into something angry and confused. Some people go to friends and cry on a shoulder while others cry and deal with the grief and pain privately. Every one grieves differently due to how well they knew the person, the friends they have, their past experiences with death, what’s expected of them, what else is going on in their lives – it’s impossible to list all of the reasons.

           All of my life, death has been a normality. I was born with all of my grandparents and great grand parents alive so, naturally, I’ve been through a lot of deaths and funerals. Especially now that I’m in high school, there have been a lot of deaths of kids in my school. My way of dealing with death probably isn’t considered healthy. I hate feeling vulnerable and weak, so I normally react very stoically to death. Also, in the deaths I’ve been through, I’ve only known two or three well. The others have been family that I was too young to know well when they died or I simply wasn’t very close to them.

            My granddaddy was killed in a car accident a few years ago. That’s had a huge impact on life for me. But not because I was close to him or we were really involved together or anything – I don’t think I even cried. But my mother has been more emotional since then – which is understandable. My sister started writing about darker things. My dad and sister were sympathetic and sad but, naturally, it wasn’t as hard on any of us as it was for my mother.

           It was the worst for my grandmother, though. She was sad for what seemed like forever. She never really stopped being sad until she remarried. Well, she still gets sad, but it’s not constant anymore. I don’t think she really loves her new husband, but I think he distracts her enough to keep her from always being sad, always coming home to an empty house.

            Unfortunately, death is inevitable. Deal with it as you may. I don’t think there’s necessarily a right or wrong way to deal with grief, I think how a person deals with it is their own business and what works for them works for them. I’m only fifteen and I have already had an uncommon amount of death occur in my life and I know there’s even more left to come.

Crossed for the next two days to pass quickly (Christmas break!).
Crossed for not failing my two tests on Friday (AP History and Honors Chem).
Crossed for  my brain to start functioning again (it’s stopped in anticipation of Christmas break).
Crossed for landing a good role in the Spring musical (the Sound of Music!).
Crossed for a good Winter (not like last year).
Crossed for my Christmas wishes (I’ve got quiet a few).
Crossed for a really great social life during break (Hayley Joy, Deanna, Neal, Danike, movies, cooking, Brent, shopping…).
Crossed for snow days (we haven’t had any yet this year!).
Crossed for my Christmas list (mostly consisting of a ceramic curling iron, gift cards, and books).
Crossed for a good Solo and Ensemble performance (even though it’s in January).
Crossed for raising my grades (Two A’s, but I need to get my two B’s up…).
Crossed for a chance to organize my school notebooks and binders ASAP (all my school stuff is in one three-subject notebook).
Crossed for my varsity jacket (it’s ready, but my mom wont’ give it to me until Christmas – because it’s not like I need a winter coat before then, before halfway through the winter, not like it’s seven degrees farenheit or anything).
Crossed that my mom will be happier this Winter (this time of year has been hard for everyone since her dad died).
Crossed that the people that I can’t get enough of couldn’t get enough of me (it has been improving…).
Crossed for crazy amounts of photo shoots over break (I swear, I’m so itchy for some.)

Crossed for being able to uncross them.

      The girl stepped out of the shack, clad in a long, white nightdress. She stepped onto the cobbleston path leading only to another house. It was dead silent. A large, stone fountain that no longer worked cast a dreadful shadow in the dimly lit path. No stars were out. The only light came from a single, yellowish lamp to the left of the door of the single house ahead of her. The girl didn’t seem to be scared at all, only careful. She was pale – practically colorless – and with light hair that floated down to the middle of her back and pale eyes. When she was near the house, a young man stepped out of the door and put one foot on the porch step. He reached out his hand to help the girl up the stairs and to welcome her.

       From another angle, another woman watched the girl through binoculars. She saw the girl cautiously move down the stone walk. When the young man emerged from the house to greet her, she felt her neck grow hot. She knew this man. Unfortunately for her, all romantic possibilities with him had been torn from her future. She continued to observe the man; he was certainly pleasant to look at – tall, composed, clean shaven, brown hair, dark eyes, also pale. His clothes were simple and near colorless, too. If only the old fountain wasn’t blocking some of her view.

       Everything’s strange, she thought, crouching in the dark above the dreary scene: a path leading from a doorstep of one house directly to another house’s doorstep; there were no side paths branching off of it. What was the point of that? 

       The pale girl smiled gently and took the man’s hand as she floated up the steps, following his lead. He had let go and turned around, no longer welcoming. He went through the door first and reached for something beside the door frame on the inside. The house was peculiar. The first room that you walked into was lined in books on shelves from floor to ceiling. The books were old and dusty. Some were on the floor, bent and lying open. Directly ahead of her, perfectly aligned with the front entrance, was another doorway. This one had no door. She could see through it to another room, also lined entirely with books. Only this one was lit – by candles, maybe. The same yellowish light poured from the room. The doorway was as far to her left on the opposite wall as possible. She could see room after room, all identical, with books and either dark or dimly lit, the doorway in the exact same place on the wall, no doors…

       The man continued to walk into the next room, the room glowing with dreary light. As she entered, she saw what he had taken by the door. The light glimmered off of an uncommonly long, silver sword. He casually held it pointing downward.

       She looked around. She couldn’t identify the source of the light. It seemed as if the room was just lit on its own, as if the light came from nowhere. This room had books strewn across the floor and two couches – One to her right along the same wall as the door that she entered through and one to her left, also along a wall. On each couch was the corpse of an old woman. On the couch to her right, a woman with long colorless, braided hair lay on her back with her hands on her stomach. On the other, the woman’s body was draped over the arm rest towards her, face downward. Her arms hung limp and straight down past her head. Her hair was frizzy and kept tied back.

       ”You must do this,” the young man uttered low. “There are two very solemn people.” At that moment, the pale girl became aware that she had been seen walking to this house. Out of nowhere, she just knew about the woman watching her enter the house. Back to the beginning, she thought. She panicked.

Change of scene.

       She was back on the porch of the first house, stepping onto the first step, towards the ground. She walked along the cobblestone pathway, leading to the house with the books and corpses. This time she couldn’t let herself be seen. This was strange. It wasn’t as if something would happen if she was seen again and she didn’t really care if anyone saw her. It was just as if she wasn’t meant to be seen and if she did, it would stain the folds of the future. But nothing would come of her being seen. The future would go on the same way as would have last time.

       She made it to the other house again. This time, the man did not come out. She walked through the first room into the second, where the man was standing there, holding the sword in the same manner, waiting for her.

       ”Two very solemn people,” he repeated. Suddenly, the old corpse with the braided hair jerked up. He legs remained propped up on one end of the couch, on the arm rest, but her entire torso lifted, still straight. It was as if she was reclining on a plank and it had increased its angle to the ground. The pale girl couldn’t tell if the lady’s eyes were open or not.

       ”You must do this.” The man was still looking at her, not the corpse. He knew about the corpses, of course. And he knew this one was moving, yet he acted as if nothing peculiar was occurring. The lady wheezed.

       ”One, breathe. Two,” The raspy voice was strained. She had practically coughed the word “breathe” and she had left no time at all between the words “breathe” and “two.” The girl wasn’t breathing – just being. Was the corpse telling herself to breathe? It didn’t matter. The woman continued. “There are two very solemn people.” The old woman flashed to sitting on the couch normally. Her hands were open and moving in front of her while she spoke. “They don’t enjoy…. Or having organs inside them or anything.” The wrinkled hands moved to her abdomen.

Change of scene.

       The girl was back in the first shack, made of planks of wood. It had one door, one window on either side of it. Inside there was a whole wall full of books on shelves. She had ripped some books off the walls. Sweat made the nightdress cling to her skin and made her hair matt. Colorless hair clung to her face. A book sat on the floor, closed. The girl took the sword with both hands on the mantle, lifted it above her head and brought it down onto the book. She did the same with another.

The solemn people. The apathetic characters.

     At almost this same time last year, on a Monday, I was sitting on the porch of my boyfriend-at-the-time. I was sitting on the cold, cement steps, in an oversized hoodie. His arm was round me and my hair was simply and carelessly pulled back. I had on little make up because most of it had been cried away earlier that morning. It was raining and dreary – appropriate weather for the most recent, tragic happenings.

     The Friday before was a regular school day. I had survived my first hour class, Honors English, and had routinely sang through second-hour Chorale. Lunch was as boring and uninteresting as it usually was. I had, again, not brought anything to eat and had, again, half-intentionally, not brought money to buy food. My table consisted of a few girls and fewer guys, all of whom I currently or previously shared choir with, except for one girl, who I met during the musical of the last school year. Three guys and four girls at my table, usually.

     Two of the girls were inseparable – they still are. They were both energetic and loved everything Disney and musicals. The girl I had met in the last school musical had red hair and played the piano. One guy had moved to America from Mexico before his sophomore year. I had met him the year before. Another was a boy I had gone to homecoming of freshman year “with.” Both were in Chorale. One boy was a freshman (who had come into the high school from the same middle school as I had attended), a bass in my choir, and the quietest one at the table. None of us really went out of our way to talk to him, but it wasn’t as if we ignored him or shunned him in any way. For the preceding couple weeks, he had offered to share a part of his lunch or had offered me a dollar or two. That Friday was no exception. He offered me some of his meal, consisting of a bag of chips, a carton of milk, and a burrito. Not particularly being a fan of any of those, I declined gratefully.

     The rest of that day was normal and uneventful. Or, rather, I assume it was uneventful because I don’t particularly remember anything else happening that day, or even the next. On Sunday, the speaker at my church (which was half an hour away from my home) had commented on the death of two local boys that had died in  a car crash. He named them and, at the time, it didn’t cause any bells to ring or any lit light bulbs to appear above my head. When I got home, I checked my Myspace (as I did religiously). When I looked in the bulletin space, I saw bulletin after bulletin entitled “Tim, we will miss you” and “Tim and Josh” and, finally, “RIP Tim and Josh.”

    Still, no connections were made in my mind.  I Googled the names of the boys and found some blurbs and articles. Nothing stuck out to me. That was until I found a picture of them. One face struck me: the pale skin, short hair, relatively large lips many shades darker and redder than the rest of his skin, the familiar posture.  I couldn’t understand, Tim had just offered me his burrito two days ago and would, surely, be back to offer me more high school cafeteria food the next day. Was it really him and his older brother that had been the subject of all those Myspace bulletins?

     That Monday confirmed my questions. First hour was fine. But, as I entered the choir room, I saw girls hunched over each other with tissues, eyes and noses matching shades of pink, foreheads wrinkled, their shoulders quickly rising and falling. Other girls were comforting them and guys where in their seats, their heads lowered, solemnly quiet. Once class started, I noticed a couple people hadn’t shown up. That class period was when it hit me: Tim was dead.

     Class that day was everyone sitting around my choir director on the floor, talking about Tim, listening to a school counselor, and crying. Lunch was odd. I don’t think any one ate. The girls were crying and the guys were silent. When I got home, I just wanted to go talk to my boyfriend.To just be with him, at least. I was surprised when my mother agreed to drive me a half hour away for that.

     We were sitting on his porch in the rain. I eventually just started feeling bad in general and ended up listing everything I thought was wrong with me or was an example of my dorkiness, excluding physical things. He sat there, responding by taking what I listed and shining a positive light on it. In really cute ways, he explained how my having blonde moments was endearing, or how being a bookworm added to my intellect, which is enticing. The conversation trickled to other topics.

     I loved the cool air and the sound the rain made when it hit the metal roof of the porch and then slid off onto the concrete, into itself. My mother had told him to make sure I stayed dry before she left. Defiantly, I would walk out into the rain. He stayed on the dry porch, watching me. When I stood and looked at him, and he saw I wasn’t coming back on my own, he followed me, wrapped me in his arms and escorted me back under the roof.

     The last two paragraphs were actually all I intended this entry to be. I never meant to write this much. But I felt like I should explain the rest. Hopefully, people will have enjoyed it just as much.

Something to smile about #1: Sitting on porch steps while it’s raining with some
one who doesn’t care what the weather’s like just as long as you’re with them.

Rest in peace, Tim, Josh. You have been, by no means, forgotten. Never will be. See you later.

=]