A Time When You Felt Pain

At the age of 14 my heart suffered a hard blow, my father suffered a stroke. The father that I once knew would never be the same again. My father was now permanently living in a nursing home. He could not speak anymore nor walk he was totally dependent on the help of others to assist him with everyday living. My mom did not make enough money to hire a nurse to take care of him at home so she had to put him a nursing home. This was a very hard time for me because the fun, laughable, and enjoyable father that I once known and loved to death was not the same anymore. I was depressed, hurt , and confused my whole attitude changed about life. My grades in school took a nose dive. I went from being an honor roll student to making all F’s and having to repeat the ninth grade.
The relationship between my mother and I began to be very stressful. totally failed my mom and added more stress to her than she needed to deal with at the time. My mom was now a single mother with two girls and a disabled husband. Her life was turned upside down over night and to add insult to injury she had a wild teenager running wild skipping school. This was not easy on my mother at all but as a child I was too caught up in my own hurt to understand or even care at the time. My mother was very strong though because thru it all she never gave up on any of us, she would take us to visit my father every Sunday after church. We would have Sunday’s dinner at the nursing home as a family. My father seemed to really enjoy this it would put the biggest smile on his face. That smile on his face actually brightened my day and gave me something to look forward to every Sunday.
One Sunday during church the Pastor preached a beautiful sermon that helped changed my life. It’s like I saw all the destructions and havoc that I had caused flash before my eyes. He talked about the importance of life and how we should not take things for granted. During, the whole sermon I kept thinking about my mom and dad