There will always be sorrow before there will be happiness, but even so, the happiness never lasts. When I was nine my father, Jole O'Conner, went to fight for America's freedom, but to this day I wait for him to come home. He died in battle leaving my mam, brother, and I in the deepest depression of our lives.
After my father's death, my mother was determined to find happiness again, so she moved back to her home land in Ireland. Using the money she earned from writing and selling novels, my mother managed to buy us a house in the countryside in which she home schooled my brother and I and wrote almost insessently.
When I first heard of my father's passing, I felt my heart tear. I had always loved my mam but my dad was always more to me than a parent, he was my best friend, my hero. He always knew what I was thinking and what I felt. He was always there to comfort me when I felt angry or sad, and not having him here to comfort me now makes everything feel worse. The day he died, I lost all happiness; I lost myself.
~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~
Not too long after we moved into our house, we discovered that we had neighbors that lived not too far down the dirt covered raod. My mam met them first when she went to the village for food. She said that they were going through the same situation as us but had moved here from Austrailia. 'That's pretty far away...' I thought as she told my brother and I about this new family. She said that they were the first house if we go right on the dirt road, and that they were expecting us for dinner.
I thought it was a bit strange, going to someone's house that I had never met. Not to say that I didn't want to meet them, but I was still trying to cope with my father's death, and even though that may have been my mam's way of handeling it, I would have rathered not to have talked to anyone.
After much argument, my mother said that I didn't have to go, but there was a really handsome boy about a year older than me that would love to meet me. I hated her for that. She always knew how to get me to do somthing even when I didn't want to. So, my curiosity mixed with a little hope from my feminine side over rode my better judgement; forcing myself to go with my mam and brother.
To say the least, it was a bit dull at first. When we arrived, my mam and a lady called Alison started talking immediatly while preparing dinner, while my brother and I found a seat in the old, stone kitchen and listened to them talk. The other children, however, didn't show up until dinner. My brother and I were the first ones at the dinner table. On my mam's orders, my brother sat across from me. She said that we would get to know Alison's children better that way. Even though I don't like to give my mam credit for much, she was right.
About a minute after Alison called for them, I heard her children walking down the stairs. The first one to become visible was a girl around my brother's age of eleven. She had bright blonde hair that was put up into a neat braid, and if there hadn't been so much sadness in them, she would have had the prettiest eyes I'd have ever seen. She looked from me to my brother and when she saw my brother looking right back at her, she blushed before sitting next to him. I didn't mind, if I were in that situation I would have done the same thing. I listened to the two of them intoduce each other when I barely noticed the boy step into the room. I could immediatly sense sadness and regret radiating from him. His eyes held even more sadness as his sister, they were even red as though he had just been crying. He didn't look at me or my brother, he just sat down next to me as if I weren't there at all and rested his head on the redwood table.
As my brother talked with the girl that introduced herself as Sheala, I studied the saddened boy next to me. His hair and skin were darker than his sister's, making her seem American if not for the Austrailian accent. My mam had said that they were in the same situation as us and I suddenly wondered, 'What happened to his father?' By the overwhelming saddness of him it must have been terrible, and I could have bet anything that he witnessed it.
My thoughts were interrupted when my mam and Alison walked in carrying the food. I wasn't very hungry. I was too filled with grief, to consume much of anything else. The boy looked the same way. His mother put food on his plate but he just stared at it with a blank expression on his face. I tried to drink some of the grape juice my mam had poured into my cup but it tasted dry and old instead of sweet and pure. Nothing tasted the same way anymore. Alison and my mam came to a discision not too far after serving the food that the boy, Aaron, and I should go outside if we weren't going to eat anything. Aaron didn't say a word before leaving but I said "Yes Mammy," and followed him outside.
I found him sitting by himself on a hill just beside his house. Not having anything else to do, I walked up next to him and sat by him. For a few minutes we just sat there, listening to eachother breath, feeling the depression and longing to move on radiating between us.
Finally, he spoke, "I thought you were from America."
I was taken aback by his sudden speaking and random topic, "I am!"
"Than why did you call your mom, mammy instead of mommy?"
Trying desperatly not to smile at his accent as I answered, "Because my mam was born here. She moved to America to go to college and wanted my brother and I to call her mam instead of mom, but we still called my daddy..." I faded off from there. It took all of might to stop myself from crying. After a while I calmed down and noticed that for the first time, Aaron was looking at me. Somehow him looking at me made me realize that I hadn't brushed my hair well this morning wich was mow up in a frizzy brown pony tail. I made a mental note to look better when I next visited him. Suddenly he moved closer to me and did somthing I would never have expected him to do. He hugged me. He was comforting me. I hugged him back and silently cried on his shoulder. I didn't know almost anything about him and yet we felt comfortable around eachother. We stayed that way until my mam called for me and said it was time to leave. We didn't say goodbye to each other; we didn't need to. We both knew that we would see eachother again soon.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~