Chicken Soup for the Girl's Soul

by Jack Canfield

  It was around 8:00 in the morning when my parents woke up to noises coming from Geoff’s bedroom. My mom went into his room and discovered that he was having a grand mal epileptic seizure. This had never happened before, and of course she was terrified. She woke me and got Dad up out of bed. Frantically, we rushed around the house to get Geoff in the car. When we got into the car, with Geoff still having the seizure in Mom’s arms, she grabbed the phone and called 911. About five minutes before arriving at the emergency room, Geoff’s shaking stopped, and he started breathing rapidly and got really cold. We were all so scared. All of a sudden, I felt guilty for everything bad that I had ever said to my brother. All I wanted right at that moment was for him to be all right, so I could apologize for everything.

  We got to the hospital at around 8:20, and they took him right in to a room with Dad. I stayed in the waiting room, crying, while Mom filled out some paperwork. Then she called my aunt Katie, who was visiting with a friend of hers, and our family doctor, who is also a friend of Mom’s. Then Mom and I went into Geoff’s room and cried. It was so hard seeing my little brother hooked up to all the tubes and machines. Minutes after we got into the room, Katie came and then the doctor came. We all hugged and reassured each other that it was all going to be okay.

  After a while, Geoff regained consciousness and started throwing up. He kept throwing up until the doctors gave him some medicine to stop it. He was too weak to talk very well, but my dad filled him in on where he was, since of course he had no idea. I eventually started to break down, so Katie took me out into the waiting room. Katie has been like a second mom to me forever, so I felt totally comfortable with her. I just hugged her and cried for about five minutes. Then she took me home, while Mom and Dad stayed with Geoff.

  At home, I tried doing everything possible to get my mind off Geoff, but I couldn’t. The next morning, we went back to visit him. By then, he had been transferred to a regular room with a TV and all that stuff. I just sat on the bed with him and talked. It was fun listening to him talk to me about all the cool things he got at the hospital, like cable TV. He also had a little monitor that he snapped onto his finger that would alert nurses if he started having another seizure. He thought that was pretty awesome. I was so happy he was enjoying himself. We watched TV and did a puzzle together, and before I knew it, it was time to go home.

  The next morning, I snatched a couple of Geoff’s Christmas presents from under the tree and took them to the hospital with me. When he opened the one from me, a Palm Pilot, he had the biggest smile on his face. I showed him how to use it, and that’s when I realized that he was going to be okay. I lay there and hugged him for so long, and I talked to him about how I was sorry for all the things I had said before. He hugged me back, and I started to cry but forced myself to stop. I was so happy.

  The next day was crammed with a bunch of tests. The doctors determined that he had a cyst on his brain, which scared me. It was hard listening to all the talks my parents had with the neurologist and the doctors. Even though they told us that it was nothing serious, I still worried a little. I was happy to hear, though, that Geoff would be released from the hospital that night.

  It was so nice to finally be home together again, and Geoffrey was overjoyed to be back for Christmas. We got along really well, and I even started reading up on epilepsy and what to do during seizures. I pulled pages and pages from the Internet and looked at medical books. I even switched my personal research topic at school from computers to epilepsy. I think I know pretty much everything there is to know about seizures, and I feel much more confident about what to do should he ever have another one.

  It has now been eight months since Geoff’s seizure. He is on medication and has not had another one since. I still worry about him sometimes, but I have gotten a lot better about it. We started fighting again, but I try to avoid phrases like, “I hate you!” or “Get out of my life.” Because through it all, I learned that I don’t really hate him. I love him. And I have thought about what my life would be like if he wasn’t in it. He is such a big part of my life, even if we do fight, and I never want him to leave.

  I guess the moral of this story is to love your siblings just the way they are, because you never know when the day might come when they leave your life forever.

  Kacy Gilbert-Gard, 12

  One Single Egg

  The history, the root, the strength of my father is the strength I now rest on.

  Carolyn M. Rodgers

  I didn’t think that I could take much more. I had to keep up with the other girls.

  The target loomed closer and closer. Only a little further . . . ready . . . aim . . . splat! I let my missile sail through the air. Then the fear set in—I had to get away! Porch lights were being turned on.

  “Separate,” yelled Ashley. I passed two homes safely. When I reached the third house, I saw a face peer out of a window in a blur of motion as I sped past. I flew past the last house; I was almost home free. PHEW! I made it. My legs trembling, I watched as Sara, Ashley and finally Carrie caught up. We hadn’t gotten caught! Still, I didn’t feel proud of my first “egging.” I was filled with fear that we would still be discovered every second of my stay at Ashley’s sleepover. Finally, my mom came to get me, and I was unusually silent on the ride home.

  My friend Ashley and I had been born only one week apart. We were inseparable until the day her mom and dad decided that they would move to a new neighborhood. I lived for the times that my mom would take me over to her house. Everything went okay at first, but gradually Ashley made new friends and started acting like she didn’t need me as much. I no longer felt like I belonged. Carrie and Sara would make it a point to talk about things that I couldn’t relate to, like when they went to the mall without me. Slowly, I felt the close bond of friendship slipping away. I wanted to fit in, but I didn’t know how.

  It had been Sara’s idea to go egg the house. She brought a brand-new carton of eggs to the sleepover. It didn’t seem like a very good idea, but I didn’t want to look like a baby, so I decided I had better do it with them.

  The day after the sleepover was bright and sunny, and I began helping clean our house, which was a weekend chore for me. My dad was also up, cleaning away. As I polished the furniture, my dad asked me what we had done over at Ashley’s house. It must have been the guilt that caused me to tell him.

  “You see, Dad,” I began, “this is kind of funny, but we went and, uh . . . egged this house.” My dad turned pale. Then he turned red. Then purple.

  Please understand a few things here. One thing is that my dad is a cop. Two is that he is a juvenile detective, and he works with kids around my age who have broken the law. Three is that he was currently investigating about ten different kids who had just gotten into trouble for doing exactly the same thing that I had just done.

  “Do you think that’s funny?” he asked softly. “DO YOU THINK THAT’S FUNNY?!!” he roared. And then, he really got mad.

  Let’s just say that it boiled down to him making me get into the car. As I sat there, sobbing, his purpose became clearer. As we got closer to Ashley’s house, I pleaded, “No, Dad, no.”

  But he replied, “If you are adult enough to go throw an egg at someone’s home, then you are adult enough to apologize for it.” I gasped. This was even worse than I had thought. He wanted me to knock on the front door of the house we had EGGED! I just sat there in a blind panic.

  As we pulled closer, he told me to point out the house.

  “There,” I said in a shaky voice as he slowed to a stop.

  “I want you to come with me,” he said.

  As we walked toward the door, I was filled with dread. I rang the doorbell once and waited. It seemed like the longest twenty seconds of my life. A lady answered the door.

  “Hi, I, uh, just wanted to tell you that I, umm . . . threw an egg at your house.” I watched as her smile of welcome changed to a puzzled look. My dad quickly introduced himself and told her that I would clean up any me
ss that had been left. As we walked around the side of the house that had been egged, I began searching for damage.

  “This had better be the right house,” my dad growled. There was nothing visible on the house itself, and I could find no shells on the ground. Desperately, I began poking around in the tall grass. Then I started to wonder if I had been the only one to throw an egg.

  Sure enough, I found the remnants of one single egg in the grass. The other girls had all dropped their eggs somewhere else. I picked up the shell of my one egg, but there was no evidence that the egg had ever hit the brick home. I apologized to the poor lady and promised never to do anything like that again.

  As my dad and I made our way back home, he explained to me about what he had been putting up with at work from all of the other kids. “You are one of the reasons I can go into work every day and face the problems of others. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be able to go in and see the children who are hurting and the ones who need guidance. When you make a choice like this, I wonder how I failed as a parent in guiding you the right way. It makes me wonder how anything I do out there could ever make any difference.”

  With that profound speech, there ended my life of crime. I understood why what I had done had disappointed him so much. More important, I knew that my dad still would love me, unconditionally, no matter what.

  I apologized to him for disappointing him and for making a bad choice. I tried to become an example of the good that my dad fights for.

  My friendship with Ashley was never quite the same after that, but I learned a valuable lesson and I grew up a little bit. Throughout the years, there were many situations with my friends where I had to make a choice that didn’t make me the most popular, but I knew that my dad would be proud of me for making the right decision. That was enough.

  I later followed in my dad’s footsteps and became a police officer myself. When I first caught a group of kids “egging” a house, I was faced with bringing them home to their parents. One of the boys begged me to let him go . . . just that one time. He told me that I didn’t know what he was in for from his dad. I told him that it wouldn’t be as bad as he thought. He scoffed at me, until I said, “Listen, do I have a story to tell you. . . .”

  Cheryl L. Goede

  Raining Memories

  Please teach me to appreciate what I have, before time forces me to appreciate what I had.

  Susan L. Lenzkes

  Time: The world revolves around it, and mortals are always attempting to beat it. I don’t generally run with the pack, and I am usually not concerned with time. However, on this one particular day, I was, in fact, running with the pack to beat time.

  A surly gray sky thundered above, while light raindrops splattered upon my stone-cold fingers. Captured in my nine-year-old hands were the first raindrops of the morning. The cold rain trickled down my slick warm-ups and into my shoes that stood perpendicular to the white starting line of the 200-meter dash. A distant sound of the warning whistle flowed into my ears through the cold breeze. The race was soon to begin.

  I removed my warm-ups, as did my competitors, none of whom seemed to be as cold as I was. All the same, the race would begin whether my tight muscles were ready for it or not.

  “On your mark . . .” a man’s voice sounded.

  I readied myself at the line, situated comfortably in my blocks.

  “Get set . . .”

  I thrust my backside into the air, my legs ready to spring forward into motion.

  BANG! The gun sounded, and I shot into my lane, rain stinging my face as I ran against the wind. Nearly midway through the race, I wished that I had thought to put on some glasses to protect my eyes from the tormenting downpour. However, this was not a possibility, so I turned my head slightly to the left to keep the rain from going straight into my eyes. Much to my surprise, I saw a familiar face in the crowd. Standing apart from the others stood a man in a hooded green windbreaker, light blue jeans, and a pair of white, blue, and yellow-green running shoes. Though the rain was falling quite heavily now, he ignored his hood, revealing a full head of light-brown hair. Behind his strawberry-blond goatee, a smile was evident upon my father’s face.

  Why was he here? He never comes to any of my sporting events. Why did he decide to come to this particular track meet? I wondered.

  Drawing my attention back to the race, I noticed that I had almost run out of my lane. The race was nearly over, and I would have plenty of time to mull over his motives after the race . . . but now was the time for running.

  So, I put forth all of my strength into the remaining fifty meters. I crossed the finish line and went looking for my dad. Walking back to where I had seen him standing, I met my sister, Carly, and my mom, who were both eager to congratulate me on my success. My mom rambled on and on about how well I had done, saying stuff like, “You’re fantastic.” I kept trying and trying to tell her what I had seen, but you know how moms are—she kept right on talking about how great I had done.

  “MOM!” I finally yelled impatiently. She looked startled and hurt. “Sorry,” I said in an undertone, but my voice then strengthened. “I saw Dad! He was watching me run!” My face was glowing. “I can’t find him now, though. Can you please help me look?”

  And so we searched. We looked around the track, the concessions, by the field events, we even looked in the parking lot—and then we searched them all over again. My heart sank as I realized that my dad was clearly gone.

  The ride home was a long one. Why did he leave? I kept questioning myself. But, he had come. I had finally seen him after three long months of separation.

  A few hours after we had reached our home, a soft knocking announced the arrival of an unexpected guest. Carly opened the door and welcomed the principal of our small-town high school. Mom greeted him, and he spoke to her in a very grave manner.

  “We need to talk. . . .” He gave Carly and me a quick glance. “Privately. It’s serious.” Much to our dismay, Carly and I were sent down the street to play with the neighbor kids. When we returned, we fully expected our mom to have lost her teaching position at the high school, but what we stumbled upon was much more unsettling.

  Sitting in the chair, my mom was sobbing into her hands. I was shocked at what I saw and sat down next to her on the couch. Carly took the loveseat. We waited for an explanation. After a moment’s recuperation, my mom spoke.

  “Girls . . .” she said gravely. There was a long pause. “Your dad has passed away.” The words entered my head, racing from one side of my brain to the other as if trying to truly comprehend what they meant—but I knew.

  “When?” I asked quietly, staring blankly at my folded hands.

  “Last night, er . . . early this morning.” Mom fought back her anguish. “The coroner said he . . . he. . . .” She choked back tears. “It happened around one or two this morning.”

  I sat in shock, unable to cry, unable to feel. How could he have died and left me when I hadn’t spoken to him for three months? How could he have left me with nothing but a three-month-old good-bye? In fact, how could he even be dead? This was not a very funny joke. How could he have possibly been at my track meet if he had died before the track meet even started? A bit of hope helped lift my head enough to look at my mother’s red, swollen eyes, which tore me back down. My mom couldn’t act, and honestly, who would pull a joke this sick? Nobody. He was gone. Somehow, mysteriously, he had appeared to me at that race in a final gesture to me—as if it was his way of saying good-bye.

  Now that I am nearly sixteen, I have finally learned to accept that he’s really gone. I have been holding on to a false hope that he would return or that I would experience one last hug. But after more than six years of dreaming about memories I never had, I realized something very important that now lives in my thoughts every day: One cannot live while thinking on what might have been. Time holds misfortunes that are inevitable, but time still passes and never returns. We must be happy with what we do have right now, in this moment, a
nd not let time get the better of us.

  Kirsten Lee Strough, 15

  Sarah’s Story

  Every child has a right to a good home.

  Ettie Lee

  I remember everything about Russia.

  I was adopted from there when I was only four years old. It was a very sad life back then. People there didn’t have enough money or enough food to eat, and it was hard to find warmth in such a cold place. For some people in Russia, it still is a very sad life, but I understand that the country is now building up and becoming a stronger community.

  When I was just four years old, my mom contracted a disease called tuberculosis, which made it hard for her lungs to do their job. My mom also walked with a cane. Eventually, she couldn’t take care of my sister, Anna, who was then fourteen, my eleven year-old brother, Michael, or me.

  As amazing as it might seem, I don’t remember ever seeing my father. I know he lived with us, but he left for work early in the morning before I woke up and came home late at night when I was already asleep. He worked hard so that he could earn money for our family, but he didn’t make enough money to take care of all of us.

  Although my mom was sick and my dad worked all the time, this is how my being adopted really started: There’s this rule in Russia that says you can’t walk after dark by yourself if you are a child. My sister, Anna, was fourteen then, and she was walking in a forest by our house. The police saw her and took her home.