Cut by Thread

The lost of a love one

I look at my father's coffin for the last time before it is buried 6 feet underground and I will never see him again. This man that I looked up to in my 17 years of my life is now gone because of an accident. He was helping a negro with a machine and got severely burned. But the negro was untouched because of my father's help. It was really hard finding a doctor to care for my father's burns because of what he did for a colored man. We had to pay double for a doctor to tend to my father's wounds. But he got worse and worse anyway. 6 months after the accident, my father took his last breath, leaving us with aching hearts and huge medical bill. My mom, sister and I took the trolley home. We all were quiet. We were still taking in the sadness that was brought upon us. I sat next to my sis, and became lost in thought. Then I started to think about our situation... What were we going to do? Thoughts and questions ran through my head about what was going to happen now that we lost a great man, husband, and father. Are we going to starve?What will happen to us? Will we live on the streets? Then, the trolley bell dinged. My thoughts and questions vanished. It was our stop.We exited the red trolley and walked down the streets of Harlem. The streets were empty except for last week's trash, newspaper, and old junk at the ends of the curbs. The trash continued on and on. Not hearing my father's voice complaining about the dirtiness of the streets brought tears to my eyes. My mother glanced at me and saw that I was crying and then my sister started, too. In the end, we all were. It's never easy losing someone. We finally made it to our apartment. We opened the door and walked up the creaky stairs. We all took a deep breath, wiped our tears, and opened our apartment door. We made dinner and went to bed in silence. The next day, I woke up then put on thin white tights, a wool light brown skirt and a bulky green sweater that had been my mom's but ended up in my dresser. After that, I took 4 steps from my bed and looked at my baby sister Grace. She was already 8 years old, but a baby in my eyes. Her short brown hair and her cute rosy baby cheeks brought a small smile to my face. She was the sunshine of my day and always had the weirdest laugh. I shook her shoulder and her eyes began to flutter open. She looked at me with her sleepy eyes. She gave me a hug and then she got dressed for school. I decided not to go to school that day and stayed with my mother to figure out what the plan would be for the future. I walked Grace to school which is a couple streets away from our apartment. We didn't live in the richest part of New York City, but it wasn't the poorest either. Harlem was filled with shops and little marts in the morning and at night it was filled with jazz and dancing. I waved goodbye to Grace as she walked into school. When she was inside, I started to run home so I could miss morning traffic. I opened the door of our apartment slowly so I wouldn't wake up my mom. After I closed the door, I saw my mom sitting at the kitchen table holding a cup of coffee in one hand and my mom and dad's wedding photo in the other. I noticed that her eyes were watery. Then, she saw me at the door staring at her. She tried wiping her tears away so I wouldn't see it but it was too late. She tried giving a smile at me but the smile didn't fool me. I knew she was still upset . I walked to her and gave her a huge hug. I sat across from her and looked at her wedding photo. She put the photo down and said, "Why aren't you school? You know how important it is to your father..." she stuttered on the word 'father' and took a deep breath. I reached for her hand and said that it was going to be okay. She nodded. She began to speak again. "There's going to be a few changes around here and there are going to be some sacrifices that we'll need to make" she explained, trying to remain calm and not cry," As you know, we all lost someone dear to us and that we need to find a way to pay for his medical bill, our house, and our needs." I nodded my head before she continued, "What I'm going to say will sound ridiculous, but I have no choice. We're going to need to get jobs. Times are hard and it's not going to be easy to find one. We're probably not going to be paid well." "Job? A Job? What about school? What about my friends? What about me?" I interrupted, almost in tears. She tried to calm me down, saying, "I know, I know that you are not going to like it, but I don't know how else we're going to pay for your father's debt and our rent." I looked away from her to show that I wasn't agreeing with her decision, but then I thought and felt bad because I was being selfish. It probably is the best to do, not for me but for the family. "Okay," I said and walked back to my room. I left my mom in confusion, without her not knowing if I had agreed or not.