Remember | Teen Ink

Remember

October 13, 2009
By jkmorrow BRONZE, Spartanburg, South Carolina
jkmorrow BRONZE, Spartanburg, South Carolina
2 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
You can see the cruelest part of the world, but then on the other side, you see the most beautiful part. It's like you go from one extreme to the next, and they're both worth it because you wouldn't see the other without the other one.


The ring of the doorbell awakened me from my sleep. I stumbled down the stairs, wondering who would be out on such a miserable, stormy day. In the door way stood a very familiar face – my father.

What a surprise, I thought to myself. My father hadn’t been around much for the last nine years of my life. I would see him, at most, once every six months. I had always harbored some resentment towards him because I thought he didn’t love me and didn’t really care about me. I also realized my life was much better off without him and his verbally abusive ways, but I always wished deep down inside of me that we could have a normal father-son relationship.

In a wave of anger, I slammed the door in his face. I stood in the same spot for about a minute and then reopened the door to check if he had gone. He hadn’t. “What do you want?” I yelled.

He said nothing, but his eyes shifted to a photo album in his hands. My eyes followed. The photo album was white with gold trimmings. On the cover typed in big, bold, black letters was REMEMBER.

“Remember?” I asked, puzzled. “Remember what? Remember the ways you treated me when I was younger?”


He closed his eyes and then reopened them. “Josh, I just want you to know that I understand why you feel the way you do. If it was me, I probably wouldn’t be listening to a word I am saying now. In this album are photos of us when you were too young to remember them but it shows that I do care for and love you.”


I cautiously took the album and opened it. The first picture was of me on a swing in the park with my dad pushing the swing. I looked so happy. The next picture was of my dad putting a lifejacket on me at the lake and I looked happier than I had ever been. The rest of the photos showed me in various places with my dad having fun and being happy.

In happier times my father had been a good father, but those years were so long ago they were almost erased from my mind. It pained me to even think of them.


“Why?” I asked with a cracking voice. “Why couldn’t you have always been the man in the s photos? Why?”


“Because I changed into a man that I was always afraid to be and have made a lot of mistakes that I will have to live with for the rest of my life. I just wanted you to remember the happier times, the times before I became who I am today.”

I looked down at the photos once again and when I looked up, he was gone. “Bye Dad,” I said into the air. “I remember. I remember.”


The author's comments:
As I have grown older, I have thought more and more about my father. I wrote this as a way to get how I felt out and to also help other teens who may feel the same.

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This article has 1 comment.


on Mar. 16 2017 at 4:56 pm
Jillybean BRONZE, Ypsilanti, Michigan
4 articles 0 photos 7 comments
What a thoughtful, heart-wrenching story. I think we all have those memories of our parents before we start to learn about who they really are, and you express this so beautifully.