The blue book

One of the biggest mistakes I've ever made was not saying good-bye. Most people would say a mistake was something you've done wrong. My mistake was something I didn't do. My mistake started on a beautiful spring day, it was so full of life. My uncle was over, but that was nothing new, he was always over. I sat on my bed that day as my uncle took my parents for a ride in his new lease. I was very caught up in the latest of my book crazes, Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Canon Doyle. My mom and dad got back and shortly after that my uncle left. When I arrived downstairs he had already gone. Two days later my family recieved the most awful phone call. It was about 9 in the morning. We were on our way out the door, it was raining. I had never seen my dad cry before, and I haven't since the funeral. It was the most awful thing I've ever seen. It made me want to die seeing my dad so helpless. I'll never forget the look on his face. It has remained a part of me since that day.

This mistake has affected me ever since. I have always wished that I would have said good-bye to him. For a long time I cried myself to sleep. And at one point I blamed myself for his death, thinking I could have somehow saved him. I badly needed this thing in my life, I called it closure and labeled it: never leaving someone you love when you are mad, always saying goodbye to them, and knowing that they love you. I was afraid for a long time to leave my house with the fear that while I was gone someone in my family would die. I became very obsessive about saying good-bye to people, to the point that I would cry if I didn't get to. I have never finished the book I was reading and I never will. It has affected many areas of my life, some beyond what anyone but God can repair.

Mostly, by realising that I had no life, I decided that most of it had to stop. I couldn't always be with my family and they didn't always want to be with me. I couldn't cry everytime someone walked out the door without saying good-bye to me. It hasn't all gone though, I still cry a lot when I think about him. I still freeze up when I see that look on my dad's face when he found out. It still haunts me as I go through my daily life with the feeling that something is missing.

The reason I tell this story is because I think it is important to show your love for people and let them know that you care about them. I think people shouldn’t stay mad at others and should resolve their issues by the end of the day. Life is way too short to stay mad at people, it is too short to not say you’re sorry for things you’ve done wrong. We should all learn from the things we’ve done wrong, but not let them stop us from living.