by Jade Brooks

Created on: April 09, 2010

This is based on a true story about a 10-year-old girl's memories.  The day life had a crazy turn and her mother tragically suffered a stroke.  Here is a glimpse of that day and the months that followed.   Several reconnections with schoolmates from the past and unanswered questions resurfaced and inspired this story to be finally published.

A blaring alarm sounded.  I woke up from a deep sleep. A strange feeling engulfed me. I couldn’t shake the unexplainable terrified feeling I had inside. Neil Diamond, “It’s a beautiful Noise,” blared from the living room stereo. My lavender painted walls seemed a bit faint in color. I rolled out of bed feeling like I had a huge watermelon in the pit of my stomach.

I grabbed my robe and walked barefoot through the darkened hallway, to the kitchen. I stood in the doorway frame for a moment watching my mother.  Six brown lunch bag lined the counter. Her golden locks of hair brushed her shoulders in a swaying motion. An orange followed by a sandwich and a bag of chips went into each bag on the white tiled counter. A school morning ritual, my mother played the stereo a few notches too loud, while she sang along.  She always had a real lighthearted cheerful disposition. She had three foster children and three of her own to care for. I was the oldest of her clan. Everything seemed normal, except that unexplainable weird feeling I had.  Something definitely was wrong! She turned and looked at me, her aqua blue eyes seemed dreary.

“Mom is anything wrong?” I asked.

“I feel strange.” She replied.

“I do too.”  My hand attempted to rub the weird feeling from my stomach.

“Maybe there’s a flu bug or something going around.” Mom said

“Yeah, maybe.” I brushed my bangs from my eyes.

“Go back to bed honey.  I’ll check on you in a bit.” Mom stated as she folded the tops of the lunch bags.

“But Mom Friday is my favorite day of the week and I have a perfect attendance record!” I pleaded.

“I understand dear, but if you are contagious and someone else gets sick how would you feel then?” She marked the names on five of the bags, setting one aside.

“Okay.” Disappointed I slowly headed to bed.

The buzz from alarms sounded off, out of sync. Feet shuffled as the rest of my brothers and sisters

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