Short Stick

Ever since "the incident" I've had extremely mixed feelings about my high school graduation and many other things. As the youngest child in the family, I feel I always draw the short stick. And especially after the incident, this "short stick" feeling seems to increase every single day.

First of all, college. I wanted the day to come where I would open up college acceptance/rejection emails and be able to tell him where I was going. I wanted him to be proud that his last child was going to a University. I wanted to see him do that smile he does where he closes his eyes, gives and slight smile, nods his head, and opens up his arms for a hug. I never got that day, and I never will.

Second of all, graduation. Being the last child, it's a big deal for me to finally graduate high school. Graduation went well.... at first. I didn't get many pictures because I thought we were in a rush to go to dinner afterwards. Turns out, we didn't have any dinner plans. I wasn't much upset about that. I was just really upset that it's never fair for the younger child. I wanted everything to be the same as my older sister, Ashley's graduation-complete with family support, family photo, family dinner, and family party. Notice they all have "family" in it. Yea, my family was there (except for Ashley who was taking her finals in UCLA), but not the whole family. There's one person missing. Dad. I realized that it will never be the same as Ashley's graduation-never. And that's when it hit me. He won't know anything I accomplish or had already accomplished after his death. And once again-the short stick that I pulled turns around and stabs me in the heart.

My family thinks I'm mad because we didn't go to dinner. With an upset mind, I storm out of the house and tell them I'm going out. The truth is I sat in my car and cried for two hours. I just sat and cried about how he would never see my accomplishments. He never saw me graduate. He never saw me get my acceptance letters. He would never know where I was going for college. He never saw my success with the iMatter. He never saw my first newspaper get publish-the incident happened the day before the issue was published. In the future, he would never see me graduate college. He would never see me get married. He would never have grandchildren. The list goes on and on.

It really hurt. And it still does. He was able to witness at least one of these events with every single one of his children-but me. It's all because I drew the short stick. It's all because I'm the youngest child.