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Child Hood Trauma

I was sitting in an English class one day- I believe it was around the 6th grade. I had been called down to the office for something and usually I never get called down. This reason that I got called down to the office is something that changed my life forever. I knew that everything in my life would be lacking something. Now, all I have is memories. This event that happened to me was life changing, hard to deal with, and an experience that will haunt me forever.

It was a normal day in school in English class of 6th grade. I was going about my daily routine. Suddenly, I heard over the intercom from the office saying “Peter Levine to come down to the office, now.” I had no idea what happened. I was thinking that I had been a good boy for the year and I had done nothing serious. I walked out of the room casually, still knowing nothing and trying to ponder up what had happened. As I walked out of the room, I saw the teacher pick up the phone to see what was up. As I was mostly out of the room I looked back at her. She had this weird look on her face, as if she were questioning me on what had happened, and I shrugged my shoulders letting her know that I knew nothing, and then proceed to walk down to the office.

As I had arrived there, I saw my mom and grandmother. My mom had tears running down from her face and she ran up and hugged me. My grandmother had no gesture on her face. I looked at my guidance counselor, well supposedly this person was my guidance counselor but I have never seen this person before. She then said something that I will never forget, something that will change my life forever. She said “your father died this weekend.” Not knowing how to respond, all I thought is about my father. How can this happen to “ME.” Then I burst out crying. My mom said to the counselor that I would be out for the next week or two. The counselor said that this was fine.

I had to walk back up to the second floor, and of course my locker was right across from the class I came from. All I was doing is crying and maybe screaming I don’t remember. I saw two of my teachers run out, and my mom told them what had happened and that I won’t be in class for the next few weeks. This you could say is the worst pain someone has to feel in his/her entire life.

When I got home everyone was in tears, my family ran up to hug me. Anything that they do or say can’t change the way I feel. Every birthday I have, Christmas I celebrate or graduation I will have, will be something that my father never would have the chance to see. For me, my life is going to be hard enough, just moving on. All the therapy I went to didn’t help. I finally requested to my mom that she stop it. I believe all they did was sit there as I told the same story over and over again. All I was told was to move on. The only important thing I was told by the therapists was that some sort of percentage that “my” father died.

The only thing that I have now to hold on to is memories of my father, items that he has given me, and things that he had. Recently I have written down some of the memories that I have had of him, because that’s all I that I can do to keep him alive in my heart. This event was life changing. This has affected everyone around me. Every event to come is affected. Memories are the only thing I can hold on to. I can say that walking back to my locker that one day to get my stuff, was one of the hardest things I ever did in my life.

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