Dear Diary,
Why me? Out of all the people in the world, why me? That’s what I found myself thinking that day… The day my parents died. People kept saying it was tragic, and how I must be feeling horrible, but all I felt was numb. It was as if every emotional bone in my body was taking a holiday. Maybe to France. I’ve always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower.

People tried to shield me from the truth of how my parents died, but I knew. I heard them fighting that night. I heard the gunshot and my mother’s cries for help. By the time I called 911, my mother was dying of blood loss on my kitchen floor, and my father had shot himself in the head, dead instantly. So again, as I enter my new home, a nice cottage owned by a nice couple, Mary and Bob, I ask myself, why me? This place is very nice, I guess, but I don’t want nice anymore. I want to open my front door, starting to come off its hinges, and to wipe my muddy shoes on our worn out carpet, stained so that compared to its original self, it’s unrecognizable. I want to go home, to smell my mother’s homemade brownies, and hear my dad’s jolly laugh resonate around the house.

I won’t lie to myself. I know I’m never going back there; it will never be the same. I’m trying to move on even now as I write this diary entry and Mary and Bob call me down for dinner. The diary was my new therapist’s idea. I need a therapist because the social worker who handed me off to this couple is worried I’m emotionally traumatized from the experience. In all honesty, I am. I have so many questions. Questions that now that my parents are dead, can never be answered. Dad, why did you kill mom, then yourself, leaving me alone in this world? Mom, why was Dad asking you about a man from your work, were you having an affair? Anyone, why does life have to hurt so much?

I now know life has many questions, most of them without answers. This is a harsh lesson for a thirteen-year-old girl to have to learn, but I have managed up until now, and I will keep persevering. I will never give up like my father did. There is always something, no matter how small, that makes life worth living. I was worth living for, and I still am. What’s horrible is that I’m too late to tell my father that.


Still Hurting,


The Girl Who Dreams of Gunshots