Those dreadful words cut into me like a knife. The oxygen, present a minute before, now impossible to reach. As I sit here in shock I wonder why. Why this is happening, why to me, and why now when I need him the most?

At this point I’m hyperventilating, and all I want to do is scream. I try to calm myself down, but where would I even begin when I can feel my own heart breaking. Everything is crashing in on me, and I’m terrified that I may be stuck forever. The world begins spinning around me, memories flashing before my eyes. All the times that we played together when I was just a girl, the way I craved his presence as I got older, all the times we confided in each other with our deepest secrets, and all the times we talked about my promising future. At this very moment it all seems so distant, and the future I had hoped to experience with him by my side now felt threatened. How did this all happen so fast?

As a young girl I remember always being with my mom, but it was like her spirit was elsewhere. It was as if a demon had captured her soul, but decided to leave her body to torture the ones that loved her most. I was so quick to resent my mother, because she was never emotionally there for me. She had the role of a mother down by making sure that there was always food on the table, a roof over my head, and clothes on my back but I craved her love, affection, and advice as a friend. Which my father provided for me. I always knew that my father would have my back, and I could look forward to genuinely spending time with him no matter how short the time was. He was my best friend, and although he didn’t quit have the role of a parent down I put him on a pedestal because he gave me the emotional support as a friend that I so badly needed.

As I got older my father was in and out of jail. His problem was to blame. At first I didn’t understand, but when you grow up in a family so full of secrets truth begins slipping through the seams. So, I began to see, as if I had been blind my whole life. I finally realized that my parents were addicts, and their addictions were like pits of black smoke. The further you went in the darker the consequences, the more you lost yourself, and the closer you got to death. My parents weren’t quite at the end of the tunnel, but I could see the signs: the sunken cheeks, dark eyes, and protruding bones. Their addictions brought an unspeakable pain upon me, but I knew I had to be strong. I began looking out for myself. If my parents were too far gone to ever return I promised to be prepared to take care of myself. I built up walls within, and I guarded my heart so that nothing could hurt me. If by chance something happened to get beyond my walls and borders I would lock myself in my room and deal with it myself. To allow someone else to help me meant showing them that I was weak, and I promised to never allow that.

After what felt like a lifetime of waiting both of my parents began living a sober life, and I finally felt the happiness and security that I had lacked for so many years. The void in my heart was finally filled, and for the first time in a long time I had hope. I had faith that God was finally giving me the life I thought I wasn’t worthy enough to have. At that moment I allowed the walls within me to crumble slowly until eventually I destroyed them with the trust and hope that I gave to my parents and their addictions.

One year went by, and everything was great until my father fell back down the slippery slope he worked so hard to get out of. I felt stupid and weak minded. This made me push further away from my mother in fear that getting too close would end up being a mistake, and when she forced me to leave my grandma to move in with her I was livid but I proceeded cautiously.

Then, the unspeakable happened. My father went back to jail, which wasn’t a surprise and I even thought that it was truly saving him. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I remember it as if it were only yesterday. The words that I never wanted to hear. The type of words that I had forbidden. They somehow found their way to me, and they crushed me in a way I could never have foreseen. Who wouldn’t be crushed when hearing that their father, hero, and bestfriend was facing 27 years in prison. All at once I felt fear, sadness, and anger course through my veins. I blamed myself for getting too close, my father for not fighting harder, and most of all God for hating me so much. For allowing me to feel such pain. At that moment I shut down, and the depression began to grow deeper and deeper, further and further within me. I spent my days in my dark room listening to music that expressed the same pain I was feeling, writing letters to my father, and self-harming to distract myself from the pain that was eating me up from the inside out.

So, here I am writing my father a letter when my mother comes in the room and tells me there is no use in writing that letter. Petrified and curious I ask why, and discover that my father is at the hospital across the street and we are picking him up. I rush to the car in my pajamas, and I start preparing myself for the worst. When we arrive at the hospital I wait anxiously, and as my father walks out of the hospital doors I break down crying. He holds me, and everything else starts moving in slow motion. “Don’t cry babe. I’m okay.” he says. But I can’t help it. The sight of my father, hero, and best friend with his jaw wired shut terrifies me. It makes me wonder what will happen if he is sentenced to 27 years.

I try to move past the sight of him injured and sucking all of his foods down with a straw, and instead I cherish the time I have with him without knowing how long I have.

After several weeks my father goes to court, and he is sentenced to one year and six months with several years of probation and parole. The relief I feel is indescribable. It is as if the world that had crashed down on me had finally begun to pick itself back up again, and in this moment I know it is time for me to pick myself up as well.