Degraded

Chapter 15-Sam

Trudging into the cemetery, a million thoughts and emotions run through my mind. The wind whooshes past, whipping my hair this way and that, making me shiver. I fight to keep my balance in the vigorous wind.

The air chills me straight to the bone, giving me goosebumps. I stumble to my brother's grave and fall to my knees. This is the first time I have ever been here.

"I know it's been a while since I've said anything to you and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you might of been in any pain, I'm sorry I wasn't there to save you, and most of all, I am sorry that this happened to you.

"I miss you so much it hurts. I would trade my life to see you and hear your voice just one more time." I whisper, the wind carrying my words away to the point where I can't here myself anymore.

I sit there sobbing so hard it hurts my gut. I cry so long that I run out of tears, leaving me there pathetically silent-crying.

I grab the journal from my pocket, and set it down in front of his grave. I take the flowers I bought, and take my time planting them and watering them. I chose tulips, the flower that was in the cabin when we went camping, my favorite memory of us.

I made a decision that I would come here everyday and water the flowers, keeping them alive and well, just like his spirit, and read a piece of his journal everyday.

I realized then, that I haven't read one of his excerpts today. I inhale a long, cold, much needed breath into my nostrils and open to the second page:

Don't strive to be perfect; strive to be better than you are now.

In class today, I looked around me, realizing that there is so many things wrong with our society, but one stands out, to me, more than the others. Everyone is trying to be perfect, but what I realized then is if everyone is perfect, wouldn't we all be the same? What if perfect is not good enough?

So I decided that you should strive to be the best you can be; better, not perfect. Hence I came up with, don't strive to be perfect, strive to be better than you are now and wrote it in here, my life lesson journal.

I close my eyes and imagine my brother speaking this to me. The words don't come out right; I didn't know him the way he speaks in his journal, but then again I didn't know him very well.

That's enough for one day, time to go, Beatrice pushes and I get up and stride out of the cemetery, trying to hold myself together.