HEARTACHE

• TILEISHA DOBSON, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2015

“Alexandria…”
“What? What is it Izzy?”
“Mum is dead.”
NO
A sick feeling overcomes me, making me want to vomit. My eyes start to burn like they always do before I start to cry. I don’t even try to stop it. I crumble to the school floor in despair, sobbing uncontrollably. My older sister looks down at me, her eyes watering. The teacher watches me from inside my classroom, with pure sympathy in her eyes. This started out to be an average day. It turned out to be the day that held the biggest tragedy in my life.
Mum is dead.
Dad died of cancer 2 years ago, leaving just the three of us to make a new life without him. Now both our parents are gone. It’s just Isabelle and I now. We’re on our own now. They left us. Our parents left us. Why does it have to be our family that gets torn apart? Why us? Are we cursed? Did we do something so wrong to deserve this punishment? Something so bad, that a 14 year old and a barely 19 year old have to lose both of their parents?
But why Mum? Mum was the sweetest person I had known, always so willing to give and kind enough to donate almost $500 to the Salvation Army nearly every year. So kind, so generous. And now that’s all gone. She’s gone.
Mum had a CAT scan for a brain tumour a few months ago. The doctors said everything was fine, that Mum was going to be okay.
Liars
I barely get any sleep for the next 2 months. Isabelle is freaking out. But I know what’s wrong. I need closure. Most people say their very last goodbyes at the funeral, but I didn’t want to go. I step out the front door and run to the cemetery. I pass the rose bush, the one that all of us planted. Mum, Dad, Isabelle and I. I pluck a single red rose and sprint through the depressing cemetery.
I arrive at Mums grave. I run my fingers over the dirt covering Mums body. I draw. I draw all of us at the beach when I was little. The three of us going shopping for Isabelle’s graduation. All of us traveling to Thailand a few years ago. The day Isabell fell into the river down the side of our house and us both in. Memories. Happy memories. Lastly, I place the red rose in the middle of all the drawings. I put my trembling fingers to my lips and kiss them I place them on her cold gravestone.
I run home crying. I fly past Isabelle in the hallway. I lie face down on my bed and cry. I cry and cry and cry until there are no more tears. I cry myself to sleep.
Mum is dead.
Gone.
Vanished.
Never coming back.
I never really knew heartache meant.
Not before today.
Not really.