Creative Writing

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Reminiscing a Heart-Breaking Past
“Goodbye honey, have a nice day in school and work hard” shouted my mom as I rushed towards the school bus that waited with its door open on the tarmac road at the end of our lawn. My step-brother and step-sister had already entered the bus but I had remembered that I needed my storybook that I had left in the house that day since I would later go to the library. My step brother and sister were twins who were about three years older than me. Their mother had separated with our dad a year after their birth and she had left them with their dad. A year later their dad had married my mom and thus I was born. My mother was a caring and loving parent to all the three of us just as it was the case with our dad.
Usually, kind sentiments by my mother usually soothed and comforted me. However, during this particular day, her kind sentiments anchored my heart down with guilt. As I sat on the school bus on my way to school, I felt a dark cloud looming over my head. However, I told myself everything would work out as it had during the previous incidences that I had stolen my parents’ money. It was the third time in my life that I had stolen from my parents. It was not like I had developed a habit of stealing from them, but rather once in a while, a group activity came up that even I could not afford to say no to it. The first time I did it I needed money to go to a recreation park during the weekend with friends.

My father being a casual laborer in the construction industry could only afford the basics of living in the city which he proudly provided for his family. My mom’s pottery business supplemented the limitations of my father’s income just enough to offer us a decent life. Luxuries in my family were understandably out of the table, but even I who was viewed as the most disciplined and hardworking child could not always say no to my friends’ group activities. My rationalization for my actions was that in the coming weeks after stealing I would be very helpful and supportive to my parents and thus in a way I would be working away for my debt to them.
In the evening I arrived home the first since the first trip of evening bus was specifically for lower grades while students in higher grades came home with the second bus trip. When I came home I entered on my parents arguing about the missing money. They neither heard nor saw me come in and thus they went on despite my presence. It is through my parent’s argument that I realized that my father had lost his jobs a few weeks ago and had not managed to secure another one. As a result, finances were tight at home and thus my dad had borrowed some money from a friend to help sustain our living expenses. In their argument, I heard my dad refer to my mother as careless for losing the money bestowed upon her just like it had been the case during two previous incidences (AMERICA’S CHOICE, 47). My mother on the other hand retaliated by saying that it was not her fault that the money had been stolen. At that moment I recalled how our mum had kindly asked us during the previous incidences whether we had seen the lost money and when we declined, she trusted our answers and stopped our father from pushing the issue.
It was at that moment that I realized the kind of sacrifices that our parents made to provide for us and how my actions were putting a wedge between them while all they wanted was the best for us. I knew I had to come clean and refund the money I had stolen earlier on which I had intended to use during the weekend. While I thought my confession would elicit anger and cruel punishments, to this day what I can remember is their disappointed faces that in a single look told a story of the trust they had in me and how I had abused it for selfish reasons. To this day, the look on their faces still haunts me.
Works cited
AMERICA’S CHOICE. Writers Workshop Lessons: Narrative. Saint Martin Schools.org Website, 2006 . saintmartinschools.org/Portals/…/Writer_s%20Workshop%20Lessons%20Narrative.pdf