My Memoir

When I was growing up I lived on a farm. We didn’t raise chickens or grow crops but it was called Seitz farm. I spent a lot of time roaming the woods and fields with my sisters. I went fishing with my sisters a lot. I would walk around in nothing but cowboy boots and pretend I was a power ranger. When I got mad when I was younger I would pound my head on something. One time we were outside and I got mad at her so I started banging my head on the ground. Which turned out to be concrete and my mom said I never banged my head again. We lived by a creek so me and my sisters would make our Mom mud pies. One time I was going to go fishing so I got a shovel and found a place to dig. I was digging without shoes and when I stood up to take a rest. I shoved the shovel in the ground to lean on except I accidently shoved it on my foot. I had to go to the hospital to get stitches. Luckily the big toe didn’t come off or I might have had a difficult time walking. When my sisters started going to school I was really bored by myself. My mom took me to her daycare so I wouldn’t be alone. My mother was a computer engineer who owned a daycare. My father was a lawyer. Pretty soon I was going to Derby Ridge for kindergarten. It was weird at first but it got better. I was a good student then and never got in trouble but I never took homework seriously. I could do it in five minutes so I would do it in the car on the way to school. That worked until about seventh grade. I started playing sports in third grade. I played baseball and soccer. I enjoyed baseball a lot. I liked soccer but when I started playing football I loved it. I played both baseball and football for another 5 years. I also did wrestling from second to fifth grade. I was a good wrestler at the Columbia wrestling club. My second year wrestling I won state. My third and fourth year I started getting bored. Once I finished the fourth year I didn’t wrestle again. My first through fifth years were about the same. I just went along getting good grades and not getting into trouble. Then I went to Lange for sixth grade. Middle school was a lot different and I started hanging out with different people. Seventh grade was about the same with the same teachers and same friends but different stuff to learn about. I liked middle school because it was a fun time getting more freedom. I liked my teachers and I liked my friends. Then my sister graduated high school and was getting ready for college. But throughout all this my parents were growing apart. They were arguing more and more. My Mom moved out and got a house. Then they finally got a divorce. They didn’t get lawyers and drag it out. They just split everything and agreed to let us decide who we stayed with and when. My sister Kati was going to college and had a dorm. My sister Tedi was going to Rockbridge and my Mom was closer so she stayed with my Mom. I decided that every week I would switch houses. That was not what happened. I would stay at my Dads house for months at a time. I think in the back of my mind I blamed the divorce on my Mom. Maybe I wanted to stay away from her because of how unhappy she was. All my staying away only made her unhappier. My sister was miserable because my Mom never smiled and took a lot of her anger and unhappiness out on her. My Dad on the other hand was almost indifferent to the divorce. He had married and had two kids with a woman earlier in his life. By then he was about 60 and I think he was used to it. My relationship with my Dad strengthened and with my Mom it just weakened. I could always hang out with my Dad and he was my best friend He really wanted me to be a good athlete. But he also wanted me to be a good person. He would always help me with football or baseball. I really enjoyed hanging out with him. We would go hunting or fishing. When I did go to my Moms it was not fun. We barely talked and she worked all day and I would watch TV or workout. She would drink herself to sleep every night. The only reason I really went over there was because of my sister Tedi. My sister and I were always tight. We would always hang out and watch TV or do something. It was pretty bad for her. We all agreed West would be a better school for me to go to. I thought it would be weird at first because I wouldn’t know anyone but I actually knew a lot of people there. The first semester was hard because I wasn’t used to the work so my grades weren’t the best. I would mess around a lot in algebra class. I started hanging out with more people and getting to know them. My Mom then started to get better and happier. She wasn’t always frowning or yelling. So I started going back to the regular schedule of switching houses every week. My relationship with my Mom kept getting better and with my Dad it stayed the same. Christmas was coming up and my Mom had a vacation planned for Belize. The morning we went to the airport it was like twenty degrees and when we got to Belize it was around 100 degrees. We went to our resort and got settled in. The people who owned it were British and really nice. We went horseback riding which was fun but my horse wouldn’t listen to me. We saw some monkeys and jaguars. The next day we went to a Mayan temple. We had our own tour guide who was really nice and let us climb up the temple. We also went zip lining which was fun and was really high up. We then went scuba diving for three days. The first day was terrible because we all got saltwater in our eyes and mouths. The second and third days were a lot better because by then we had gotten the hang of it. My Mom was still really bad though and always floated up to the top. When we got back break was almost over and I was getting ready for going back to school. Second semester was better because I tried better at school. I kept getting to know more and more people and hanging out with them. School was getting close to summer. The last few days were hard because of finals but summer made them worth it. A lot of summer was just spent hanging out with friends. Swimming at the pool was fun. I also spent a lot of time working out. Near the end of summer Rockbridge football workouts started and I went to them. They were hard but I was used to it. We also went outside and ran and did drills which helped us later on. In about four weeks till school we had freshman camp for Rock Bridge. The camp was easy but it was really hot so a few kids passed out. We hadn’t started hitting yet. The camp was mostly just learning plays and getting to know the drills and coaches. The last day of camp we got pads and played a skirmish with half the team gold and half the team black. I was on team black and we won forty two to seven. The next week we did drills in pads and worked at our positions. They put the list up of starters and I was a starting linebacker. We would skirmish the JV team to get used to playing in a real game. Our first game was coming up against Hickman. On game day our coach gave us a speech saying that we needed a win for our first game and how it was important to beat Hickman. When we got out on the field I was nervous because I had played before but never high school. The Hickman team was big but so were we. We won the coin toss so we chose to receive and I was also on special teams. When they kicked up I was backpedaling to hit my guy. He ran straight to the ball so I had to cut him off. When I hit him I trucked him and he went down. When I turn around to see who has the ball our returner had fumbled it and Hickman had picked it up and returned it to the in zone. It was not a good way to start off the game and our coach was not happy. Our offense did better. They scored on their first drive bringing the score to seven to seven. We then held them on defense and kept scoring. At the end of the game it was seventeen to seven. We all celebrated the win against Hickman. Later in the season they beat us 48 to 21. We didn’t beat any other teams after that either. Some games were close and some were far apart. School then started up and I was in seventh grade. I liked seventh grade but it was a lot of work. I was alternating weeks at my parent’s houses. School was going good and it was getting near my birthday. My birthday was four days away and I was staying at a friend’s house. The next morning his mom drove me back to my mom’s house. I took a shower and was getting ready for my Dad to come pick me up. He was supposed to pick me up around twelve but by twelve thirty I had thought he had forgot. At around one thirty, I was watching TV and my Mom came downstairs crying. At first I thought something had happened to my sister Tedi because she was driving to Kansas City. She sat in the couch next to me, and told me an accident had happened. When she told me that my Dad was in the car accident, I was shocked. She told me before that his artery had severed and he had died instantly. I couldn’t speak and I felt something burning my cheeks. I reached up to scratch but I realized I was crying. I hadn’t cried in so long that I forgot what it was like. At first I didn’t believe my Mom. I thought it was a cruel joke she was playing on me, but I knew it wasn’t a joke. My Mom left me downstairs and went to tell my sisters. My heart felt like it was in my throat and choking me. My dad was my best friend and he was gone. It was terrible news and I was paralyzed. I heard my sisters come home and I knew they hadn’t found out yet. I went to my room and slept until nine the next day. I was woken up by my brother Don. He told me to take a shower and go downstairs. That was a thirty minute shower and I thought about all the memoires with my Dad. My sisters and brother were all downstairs talking about legal stuff. I didn’t really care about that stuff. The next week was a blur meeting lawyers and figuring out money. Meanwhile my brother had made a place for his burial of ashes on the farm he lived on his whole life. It was a really heartbreaking scene. It was a terrible but happy gathering and we all cried even my thirty year old brother.