The Burn of Life

Regret: to feel sorry, disappointed, or distressed about. A sense of loss and longing for someone or something gone. A feeling of disappointment or distress about something that one wishes could be different.

We all feel regret sometime in our life’s. Most of the time when we are in a bad situation, we have those thoughts about how we wish we did something or told someone something. My greatest regret is that I didn’t admit I stole the cookie from the cookie jar. Well maybe not something like that, but I do regret a lot that I did. There are three occasions where I will always regret; nothing will ever change that. If only I had the time to make all those regrets float away in the sea of regrets once and for all to be lost with everyone else’s regrets.

Regret number one happened when my parents got divorced. The last words I told my dad were, “I hate you daddy, and you ruined the family!” Everyday I regret those words to ever leave my mouth. I should of thought my words before I said them. The look in his eyes just the way that you could see his heart breaking into little piece over the words. That’s all they were just words that a little five year old was thinking. That’s right I was only five years old and to this day I haven’t spoken a word to him.

1998

“I love you, you love me...” sung barney on the TV I was watching while singing along. I love barney, did you know that my mommy got him to come to my birthday party. It was amazing, even Kevin was laughing along at the party. Daddy even got me a barney doll that if you squeezed it, it would sing the theme song!

“Sissy get up I want to watch something,” ordered nine-year-old Kevin. “Street Sharks are so much cooler then Barney ever will be.” Street Sharks was fun to watch, I will admit. But barney is on and I wanted to watch that so much more.

“No! I’m watching barney right now,” I told Kevin as nicely as I could. But since he was older and stronger then me he stole the remote from my hand. I couldn’t believe he would do that to me, I’m his younger sister and mommy and daddy always said to share.

“Kids! Can you please come downstairs,” Mommy yelled from downstairs. We both ran downstairs and looked for our parents. We spotted them in the family room so I sat down on the comfy tan couch while Kevin stood next to it. The look on mommy’s face should have warned me, she was all sad and had water running down her face.

“Mommy, what’s wrong?” I innocently asked. Mommy was trying to wipe the water away but I still saw it.

“Well we have something to tell you hun,” mommy started out but started to cry more.

“What your mother is trying to get at is that we are going through a divorce,” dad continued on after mommy.

“What’s that mean?” I asked confused. Kevin on the other hand looked between our parents and sat down next to me to hug me close to him.

“It means that your daddy is going to be moving out. And we are going to figure out where you two are going to stay between the both of us,” mom answered.

“I want to go with dad. I’m sorry mom but I really think it would be better,” Kevin told mom.
More water was trailing down her face; I’m still so confused about what was happening. What did they mean daddy was leaving and so was Kevin?

“Ok son, we are still going to go to court to figure things out,” daddy replied. But he wasn’t comforting mommy; he was at the other side of the room while mommy was sad. That’s not what daddies do; they comfort mommies not hurt them more. So I stood up went to mommy to hug her, maybe help her feel better.

“Daddy why are you not helping mommy, that’s mean of you that means we’re not a family. I hate you daddy! You ruined this family!” I yelled while running up into my room. But before I left the room I saw daddy’s eyes. That will be one thing I never forget, his eyes were wide in shock and had tears running down them. He looked heartbroken and the coldness the came out of his eyes just scared me.

Regret number two happened when I never stayed in touch with my friends. I used to have this really good friend. He was an amazing friend who was always there for me. Yet when he needed me the most I wasn’t there for him. To this day I always feel so terrible whenever I think of Kyle. I was only ten at the time; I was stupid and only thought of myself instead of others.

2003

“Ry,” I heard Kyle’s voice over the answering machine, “when you get this message I really need you’re help. Please call me back, I need you.” He sounded really upset but I couldn’t answer it. A friend was on their way and they didn’t really like Kyle too much, so instead of being a true friend I deleted the message. I had that feeling like something bad was going to happen but I ignored it. There was a knock on the door so I ran to get it before anyone else could.

“Hey Ashley,” I said while hugging her, “it’s so great that you came today.” We both went up the stairs to my room. It’s a great room, the walls are white but I got to throw different color paints to make it look splattered. But enough about that Ashley sat on my bed while I sat at my desk.

“So, I heard from Jenny that you still talk to that Kyle kid. Is that true?” Ashley asked in her preppy voice while examining her nails.

“Well, I guess we are still talking but I swear I’ll stop talking to him now, I promise,” I said while holding out my pinky for a pinky promise. We both shake on it then started watching Disney movies.

One week later

The bad feeling never went away, so today my mom decided that we should visit Kyle’s family since both our mom’s are best friends. When we got to Kyle’s house I saw that there was a for sale sign in the front yard. What happened to Kyle? Was he ok? “Mom, why is there a for sale sign there?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t know hun, I’m going to ask Emily,” mom said while heading over the next-door neighbor. I could see the gesturing and then heard my mom gasp, just then I could tell that something bad happened. Timidly mom walked back over and hugged me. “Sweetie, Kyle’s family was in an accident last week.”

“Oh my god,” I’m shocked, how could that be I just heard Kyle’s voice a week ago. “Is Kyle ok?”

“Hun, Kyle was the only survivor but he was adopted by a new family somewhere,” she answered. I will always regret not calling Kyle back that day and deleting the message. If only I could have told him how sorry I am, but it’s all too late.

Regret number three, the final one. Now after hearing about those two regrets you must be thinking about what else could there be. Well this one isn’t as important; I could have probably lived with this regret. But I still regret not taking up a sport or hobby. If I did I probably wouldn’t have been at home that fateful night. I could have maybe put up more of a fight.

2007

“Blaze, maybe you should take up a sport, you do need the PE credits,” my councilor suggested. Do I really want to play a sport, maybe. Do I want to have to sit here listening to this person keep talking, no.

“Well, I might take up kick box lessons or boxing. Ohh maybe even play the drums, who knows what I want to do,” I said while getting up and leaving. “See you tomorrow Mr. Brown.” Every week I have to sit through the same thing over and over again. ‘You need to take up a sport’, ‘you need to take up a hobby’, well maybe I don’t want to. I wish they would let us decided, I mean I’m a pretty fit person but I just don’t like the idea of having to do something instead of willingly doing it. Yet, maybe taking up a sport could help me become faster and stronger. I might have to rethink everything.

If only I could send all my regrets into a sea. If only I could tell my dad how sorry I am for saying all those things. If only I could find Kyle and ask for forgiveness. If only I took up a sport or hobby I wouldn’t be where I am today. If only…