Losing

There was one ambitious nineteen years old girl, Sophie. Since childhood, she has had this temporary dream of being an actress. Her life was a mixture of sci-fi, romance, horror, you name it, in every genre.

As she lies in bed that night, she fantasizes about falling in love with the beast, vampire or wolf, and fighting. All of a sudden, she hears some voices coming from the living room downstairs. She wonders, “it is midnight who might be there.” She comes out of her movie world slowly but dramatically and makes her way towards the door. Whoever was downstairs did not realize that a girl who was supposed to wake up early in the morning to go to college would still be awake.

She hears a female voice mourning that scares her but still wants to look. Slowly moving towards the railing from where she could see down the living area, she realizes her mother is crying while talking on the phone. She is not able to hear her mother properly but is old enough to understand that her mother was not fine. She slowly steps down the steps, staring at her mother crying. She calls, “Mom,” in a buried voice. Her mother glances at her trying to hold back her tears, disconnects the call, and wants to say something back to her daughter but she could not. Her mother freezes looking at her daughter, unable to move. Sophie shatters, seeing her mother so broken; she runs towards her and hugs her mother tight. She calls her mother with a scary mumbling voice, “mom, please stop pranking me please, for real say something I am scared. What happened? “Say something!” The daughter cries out loud shaking her mother, who is sitting like a ghost saying nothing. Her mother pushes her back and stands up. There is a big picture of Sophie with her father hanging on the wall. Her mother steps toward that picture. She takes down the frame, and in a low deep voice asks, “what would you do child if you were to know that your dad left us. Sophie could not believe her ears. “Mom, dad is coming back from his project meeting and he will be home soon; why are you thinking negatively? He loves us; he cannot do that,” says confused Sophie. Her mother burst into tears. She comes running towards her, takes her into her arms, “baby, I am sorry. I received a call from the hospital and found out that your dad met with an accident while coming back from Buford.” Sophie did not want to believe,” which hospital mom?” she asks.

“Grace hospital”, her mother replies. Without wasting another second, Sophie grabs her keys and runs out of the home. She realizes that her mother was not with her as she flashed out in a hurry. Therefore, she returns back inside and catches her mother’s hand and runs out again. Sophie drives to the hospital.

Devastated, angry, and hurt, Sophie was facing these emotions all at once, and her driving was becoming the victim of her feelings. Her mother kept asking her to slow down, but she, at that moment, could not understand a single thing. All Sophie could hear was her mind screaming that she is never able to see her dad ever again and will never hear her dad’s voice.

Soon, Sophie arrives at the hospital, gets down and rushes inside. She is mumbling, “where are you dad, where are you?”

Sophie is sobbing and shivering while standing at the receptionist desk. She asks

“where is my dad?”

The reception clerk asks her to calm down and tells her the name of a patient. Her mother steps forward, telling her the title. The receptionist feels sorry for the loss and guides them towards the room he was in. Sophie sees someone coming out of the room as she approaches. A young tall female figure covered in a black hoodie. Sophie is a little confused, but at that moment, after losing the most meaningful person, she was not herself.
She and her mother spent a long time in that room crying and talking to her dead father.

Sophie’s father’s death changed their lives. It was challenging to cope with the situation but they had to. Sophie used to do extra activities to keep herself busy whereas her mother still had not recovered from the disaster.

Following her father’s cremation, Sophie found that her mother was unable to focus or come out of the tragedy. Sophie took her mother to the therapist. There, she discovered that her mother was depressed and would soon suffer from schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental illness where the patient starts behaving abnormally, and will not accept the truth about what happened. She missed her dad, but at the same time, she realized that her mom could not end her life like that. However, she didn’t know how she could help her mother. In a week, she would begin her summer break. Her school and her friends showed great support after what happened to her in managing the assignments and tests she missed.

Her mother knew why she was taken to the therapist by her daughter and that she was on medication. In this way, she helped herself come out of the trauma and understood that she had to move on happily with her daughter. She wanted to give her daughter a life her father would have given.

Meanwhile, Sophie was an understanding daughter, knowing how her mother was struggling coming out of the harsh reality and working double shifts to support her daughter. Sophie started writing blogs and, in two months, did an excellent job that she started earning some money out of those writings. A year later, when Sophie was about to begin her second year of college, her mother got herself transferred to the town of Buford. A town where her husband was returning from when he got into an accident and lost his life.

Now, why would she want to move to that place? That is what Sophie kept wondering when she found out.

Let’s go to the next chapter and find out.