What would you do?

25 to life

Chapter 14

I swear I can feel my stomach drop to floor. My hands start to shake as I walk up to the front of the room. I look up, some people are staring at me, others are turned to there friends talking and then there are the few ones asleep; I wish that could be me. I wish I didn't have to present first, I open my mouth and start talking. Here goes nothing.

"The definition of morales in my own words are you're own beliefs that you live up too each day. Standards that you set for yourself that you try to live up to everyday. Some of my morales include that I will show empathy to my fellow peers, to support the oppressed, to not steal, too not cheat, and show forgiveness to people who may have done wrong to me in the past. We are supposed to write about the biggest struggle that we have had to overcome in our life and how our Ethics/Morales helped us through this situation. I know that many of you are excepting me to talk about me having cancer and how it has made me stronger, like one of those inspirational talks that people give us at assemblies. But that is not what I am going to talk about today, because to me this has not been the hardest struggle in my life so far. The hardest struggle that I have had to overcome is when my dad was shot almost exactly a year ago. We were in the grocery store buying ice cream for my birthday. My dad was kind of a health nut so this was a big deal. He was going to let me get my favorite ice cream, Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia right before I got it out of the cold refrigerator thing at the grocery store a man walks up holding a gun. He tells us not move. He points the gun directly at a womans head telling her to give all her money and jewelry, the child she is holding is sobbing. She puts her kid down as she takes of all her jewelry, the little kid is crying and screaming "No! No!" over and over again. Begging the big man not to hurt his Mommy. As she reaches no her purse the little kid all the suddens hits the man in the leg really hard for his size. The man lower the gun for a second as he turns around and kicks the child. This gave my dad just enough time to jump on the man with the gun. They were fighting when all the sudden I heard a gunshot go off. I stare at my dad as I realized he has been shot. The man with the gun was running away but he did not get far, while this was happening someone had called the police. Although the man was caught my dad was still killed. The man was put on trail of murder and armed robbery with other offensives on his record. He either got 25 to life in prison or the death penalty. And trust me I wanted that bastard to die for what he did but I had morales. I believe to show forgiveness and I believe if you kill someone on the death penalty because they killed someone you are going just as low. So they asked our family what we wanted to do. Of course my brother told them to kill him but I said let him live. After a long discussion with my mother and brother we all agreed with my decision. So now Robert Ronald Jacob is going to be in prison for the rest of his life. And although this doesn't make up for my dad being a dead it helps a little. That I know I can stick to my morales and let someone live even if they have done wrong to me in the past. This has been my biggest struggle in life and that is how my morales help me through it." I looked up. The whole class was staring right at me, some of the girls are crying. My hands and my legs were shaking now and I could feel tears run down my face. I walk back to my seat and sit down. I slide down in my seat hoping I would become smaller and disappear. The rest of the class went by as people take about the biggest struggle in there life like there grandpa dying or the parents getting a divorce. I hear the bell ring, I hop out of my seat and rush into the bathroom. I was still kind of crying, everyone at the school knew my dad was shot, it wasn't big news. But I had never talked about it before to people. I walk out of the bathroom, Evan is standing outside of the door. I look at him with tears still in my eyes. He pulled me into a hug and whispered "I'm so proud of you."