When I first met Sam, he was helping my mother with her financial problems. My mom just got a new job as a nurse in San José hospital. She had just recently passed the nursing test that made her study endlessly for week’s even months. He seemed like a nice guy at first but I noticed a reoccurring situation, Sam was deliberately expressing kindness towards my mom so to me he seemed like another devil who wanted to be part of our family.

After my dad died five years ago, my mom had married a man named Damien. Damien was a horrible person who spent most of our money smoking and drinking. Damien had no real job so my mom and I had to find part time jobs to support my younger siblings. Many times I would get in fights with Damien because he hit my mom and my siblings. One night I got so angry at him for hitting my mom that without thinking, I rushed into the kitchen grabbed the knife and stabbed him right bellow his chest. Five minutes later, the ambulance arrived and took Damien to the emergency room. The cops started investigating and my mom had to lie in other to protect and prevent me from going to juvenile prison. Several weeks later, Damien came home but worse, he drank more, smoked more and spent our money more. I started missing school and hanging out in the streets, my friends started to ask why I was missing school and all I could do was lie. After about 2 months of Damien’s recovery, our land lord kick us out our house and we were stuck living in inns. Sometimes we couldn’t afford to live in inns so we slept in our car and all those times, Damien was not there. My mom finally divorced Damien and started a new life, a life I didn’t want to change.

The only reason I figured Sam kept coming back was to get my mom to like him and eventually be a part of the “family”. Well it worked, my mom started to like Sam but I taught the differ. For many months, Sam tried in every way possible to get me to like him but I rejected him in every way I could. He took my side in every conflict and got me whatever I needed but I rejected him even more for that. But he was persistent and surprisingly his plan worked. I began to get accustomed to him and all his wonderful activities. Sam got me everything I needed and or wanted, he spent time with me, we went to trips during the summertime and most importantly, he provided to guidance I never had.

One day Sam fell very sick and had to be rushed to the hospital, he was diagnosed with cancer. After treatment, Sam fell very sick again but this time there wasn’t a diagnosis. A few weeks later, he had a stroke and was unable to move or talk. I couldn’t bare to see him in this state so I stopped visiting him. About 2 weeks later, my mom forced me to go and visit Sam so I went to visit him but when I got there; I spent about 30 minutes there. If only I knew that this was the last time I would see him I would have stayed longer. The next day when I got home from school, mom with tears in her eyes told me the news. I felt tears dripping down my cheeks and I started crying uncontrollable but it was all I could do for him now.
If only I knew I would have stayed longer. If only I knew.
The lesson in this is to never assume, just do becuase you might never see the star behind the clouds.