Friday, 24 February 2012

Sometimes Writers take Death for Granted

If you're a writer, you'll know what I mean. If not, well . . . either way, it's a pretty clear title.
I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Some . . . events have happened in my life that, I'm afraid, aren't very good. It's been a sad two weeks and sometimes I wish I could rewind time and, even though it was impossible to change anything, do something that could've been more memorable. Before going on, let me mention that my family lives within a half-kilometre radius between each other, and we own a fishing lodge in which my dad, who is the middle child out of three brothers, works at. He's away at least seven months a year and all summer, and I've only ever gone camping with him once. Just saying.
So, considering I don't want to give out too much because I'd feel really bad, I'm making the story short and saying: My grandpa passed away. It's hard. People will read this and think, "Oh, well, it's nothing too big. We all experience this." And I agree. But it's hard. Our family are so close that . . . well, I can't even think about something to relate how close we are. Yeah. That close.
Everyone's crushed. It hit us off guard. My family were about to go on a vacation to Denver for the first time ever to see a Vancouver Canucks game when we heard to news. By then, everything started climbing to the truth that we all knew: there was no chance that my grandpa was going to make it.
I had convinced myself not to think about it unless he actually did . . . you know. I kept telling myself that miracles can happen, that sometimes people pull through. But somewhere inside me I knew there was no hope, that the last time I would ever see him was eating a greasy dinner at our local grocery store and him telling us a story that was at least an hour long and agonizing because I didn't get any of it. I thought it was boring at the time, but now I wish I could rewind time and go to that dinner over and over and over again.
Some advice: Spend time with everyone around you as if it were the last time you're ever going to see them, because you never know - it might just be.
Now my dad's working full-time, taking my grandpa's job as well as his. Now he takes calls from our guests all the time, and he's made a 'desk' on our kitchen table, with all my grandpa's old notes and work. It hurts to even look at it, but I know I'll have to get over it. Life doesn't slow down for you - If I've learned anything, that's it.
You can write about a million deaths in your stories, but it never relates to how much it hurts to remember the last moments with someone. I always thought that it would never happen until I was an adult. I always thought that somehow no one I loved would ever die. But now that it's happened, well, I look at life from a different angle.
So, anyways, that's why I haven't posted in awhile. And to relate to the mood, I'm giving you a snippet of Abnormal Angels that's about the death of the main character's mother.
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My mother wouldn’t be proud of me, getting into so much trouble all the time. But if my mother was still alive, I wouldn’t be here to begin with. I’d be at a real school in a real town, living in a real home and eating homemade chocolate chip cookies. That never happened here. Every night I lay down, my stomach full of either meat loaf or stew. Nothing really exciting ever happened here, and at my age, no one comes to pick you up. Not when you’re fourteen. When you’re fourteen and living at an orphanage, chances are you’ll never leave until you can live on your own. And I had a long way to go.
   I sighed. This was my life. When I was eight, my mom was killed in a car crash. Yes, the classic car crash. I mean, it was really her taxi drivers fault. He wasn’t paying attention to the road, and the next thing he knew a cement truck was colliding with his little yellow cab. My father was in jail for life, for breaking into a little jewelery store and actually bombing the place to get rid of the evidence. He managed to blow someone up, too.
   I never, ever wanted to meet my dad. I didn’t think I would.

------------ And another one from further on in the story ------------

I whimpered and rolled onto my stomach, rubbing my face. I was so tired, but something inside me prevented me from sleeping, like a deep fear that held onto the memories of my nightmares, flashing them into my mind every time I shut my eyes. I hated myself for being so fragile, so scared of things that haunted me. I wished that I could just forget it all, to turn back time and still be there with my mom, holding her hand and walking down a neighbourhood street to the park. Why couldn’t I have appreciated what I had, when I had it?
   You never know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it.
   I had paid pretty much no attention to that saying until now. Now it was the outline of my life, the zero appreciation of what I used to have. And to think I thought living in an orphanage was bad, now look at me. I’m a delusional mutant freak wanted by the whole US military, plus any other country that would enjoy using us as weapons. Now I’ve really lost everything.
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That's it for today. I know that it's a long post, and sorry for that. I tried to make everything short, but I guess I've kind of failed there. Heh :\

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