Requiem For Hope

Willow

Stress is a strange emotion. It can make your heart race and tear your eyes but for someone with such brief experience with dealing with it so often, I don't find it a big deal anymore. When I see my seven year old sister, Lily, standing by my bedroom door, crying, looking at me for help, it's not anger or fear I feel, it's stress. Because I know why she's crying and I know what she needs me for. "Willow, dad's not here" She whimpers. 'Dad' I let that word echo in my mind. A word I know about yet I fail to describe it. Because I don't know whether it's only my dad who's a terrible father, who chooses drugs over his own kids, who sold many things in the house, including some of our dead mother's jewellery to buy drugs, or is it all the dads. I've seen people with better fathers so I guess we were just not lucky. And here I am, telling my sister that it's okay, he's fine, he'll be back. I tell her to stop worrying and go back to sleep or she'll have trouble waking up for school tomorrow. Just as she turns to leave, we hear a rumbling downstairs and I immediately know that dad's home. We go downstairs, searching for the source of the noise and we find him in the bathroom of his bedroom, passed out on the floor, half his face covered in beer that has spilled from the bottle lying next to him, a syringe next to him. I sigh. Its not even stress that I feel anymore, it's anger, uncontrollable kind that makes you want to scream out loud. "Go to your room, Lily" I say quietly, still looking at dad. "Why is he unconscious?" She asks. "Go To Your Room!" I yell. She stares up at me for a second and then walks upstairs. 'I don't like raising my voice at you either, Lily, I'm just too tired to think twice right now' I say to her, but not in reality, in my mind. Once she's gone, I grab my dad's arms and drag him out of the bathroom and to the bed. He groans as I bring him out of the bathroom, mumbling something that I'm hardly understanding."Sofie" He groans and keeps calling me Sofie. If he would've opened his eyes a little, he'd see me but he didn't. He just kept groaning like an idiot.

"Sofie, where are you?"

'She's dead'

"Sofie"

'Shut up, I'm not Sofie, I'm your daughter'

I don't know how to put him on the bed so I just leave him there. I don't care if he wakes up with back pain, I just want to get this over with and go to sleep. After he's out of the way, I clean the bathroom floor, throw the beer bottle and the syringe away and crash on my bed. After rubbing my eyes for twenty seconds, I realize that I'm too tired to sleep.

I'm getting ready to leave for school when he barges into the kitchen and places himself on one of the wooden chairs of the kitchen table, holding his head and squinting his eyes. He aggressively scratches his right arm, which has a giant black mark on it, due to the injecting drugs,I assume.it's disgusting to look at but he keeps scratching like it's just a normal mosquito bite,which disgusts me even more. I don't wanna throw up and I just had breakfast, so I just pack my bag and get ready to leave.     "Willow, I need a cup of tea" He says. I hand Lily her bottle, completely ignoring him. "Good morning, dad" Lily says but he ignores. "Willow, I asked you something, he's looking up at me now, waiting for an answer. I slam my bag on the table " You Can Do That Yourself, Father" I tell him, dragging the word 'father' to vaguely remind him who he is. He's staring at like a deaf person does when they read your lips to understand what you're saying. "Is That The Way To Talk To Your Father?" He yells.

"Oh, you remember you have kids? I thought you forgot since you never cared" I reply sarcastically. He presses his lips together but I don't flinch. I know I'm right and he has nothing to say to me that would prove me wrong. So he just glares and I glare back.

Philip

She's staring back at me. No, she's glaring back at me. I don't say anything thought. If I wasn't hungover I would have replied but the argument between us always ends up nowhere so I just drop it with a sigh "Will, please, I need some tea to wake me up" I say softly and hold my forehead and squint my eyes for a dramatic effect but she's not buying it. "It's right there, dad, right there" She points at the kettle and exits the kitchen with her bag. I'm baffled by her behavior but I'm afraid I lost power over my kids, especially Willow. She's fifteen years old, she doesn't even consider me a part of her life anymore. That saddens me but unfortunately I don't think I can change that. Ever since my addiction came to her knowledge, she lost a major amount of respect for me, and I might never even get it back. She and I had a decent enough Father-daughter relationship but then her mother died and I started using, we grew distant. While Lily might still consider me an important part of her life, Willow would not.

My insides feel tingly. It feels like I'm getting tickled internally. I need my drugs or I'll lose my mind. I don't remember when was the last time I didn't wake up in pain. It never left my body since the first time I injected herion into my body. That was two years ago, exactly two months after my wife's death. I tried my best to forget and move on. But it wasn't easy trying to forget someone you spent so many great memories with. No one saw it coming. She just told me one morning that she's going to wake Willow up for school, three minutes later, I hear a loud thud. When I entered Willow's room, I found her on the floor, unconscious, Willow was sitting next to her, gently tugging her to wake her up. I knelt down next to her and froze when I noticed she wasn't breathing. Doctors explained that it was an aneurysm. Apparently, 15% of people with this disease don't even survive longer than twenty four hours and unfortunately, she was one of them. After her death, I was miserable. I couldn't just move on from the woman I loved, the mother of our kids. Lily was only five when she lost her mother. That's when I started using herion, to distract my brain from reality, and it did a good job at making me forget everything and just be numb for a while. I don't exactly know what got me hooked but I can't go on without it. It was subtle at first. I could go weeks without touching a syringe. But slowly, my body got used to the satisfaction it brought to it and now that hunger is a monster living inside me, demanding more and more herion. I can't control it anymore. I feel like I'm gonna die anyway,whether I stop drugging myself or keep doing it. I'll die with or without it but this addiction will be the death of me either way. I did try to stop once. It was about a year ago, when I once came home around seven thirty pm, extremely high, Willow was in the kitchen, making dinner and Lily was in her room upstairs. I started yelling at her, I don't remember exactly what I said. She yelled back, I don't remember what she said either. The argument between us got heated and I ended up throwing a wooden spoon at her, bruising her forehead. I think that's the reason Willow hates me now, and I understand that completely. That's when I stopped doing heroin for good and it was going pretty well. I was clean for three months straight. It wasn't easy, the first week was the worst. I had a terrible headache and everything was pissing me off. And the second week was somehow worse, I had an excruciating pain and a constant itch in my right arm, where I used to inject from, but somehow I made it till three months. But then one night, I was coming home from groceries when I saw a man, unconscious at a sidewalk, he had a small amount of heroin in a plastic bag in his hand. Seeing the man there woke that monster inside me again. Without thinking, I took it with me and relapsed. I haven't been clean ever since. The relapse and the wooden spoon incident were the reason Willow took over as the man of the house, cause she knew that I couldn't be counted on anymore. And I gotta admit, she handles it pretty well. I lost my job as a lecturer six months ago. Apparently, someone told the board about my addiction, which was pretty tame at that time, but the board wasn't having it, and fired me. I do still get pension but it hardly covers the monthly bill. Willow works part time as a tutor to make some money. I guess teaching is in the family. And sometimes, my parents send me money for the girls too, so somehow, we manage to keep going financially. Willow keeps the money hidden I  different places in her room, some of which I find if I'm lucky enough. I've been through her room before to find some cash, even found her secret stash sometimes to buy me my daily dose. I do feel bad everytime I steal from my own daughter but an addict can't stop themselves unless they're tied to a chair. And most of the money she gets is mine anyway, since it's from my pension and parents.

I wait for them to leave for school and then make my move. The money in her drawer isn't much but it's enough to get a good amount of heroin. I stuff the money in my pocket and leave. I need my daily dose.

I'm walking across the street, texting my dealer to show up around the subway, where we usually meet. Because the busy subway is the last place the police checks for drug dealers. It's too crowded at this time for anyone to pay any attention to me anyways. I also tell him to bring something stronger this time.

'Stronger than heroin?' He texts back.

'Black out strong' I reply.

'Damn'

I leave him on seen. I want to be unconscious today because today is the date Sofie and I met fourteen years ago. She and I had a chemistry lecture that day. I saw her, asking other students around her if she could borrow a pen. I took the one pen that I had and gave it to her, she turned to me, thanking me with the prettiest smile I've ever seen on a girl's face, I couldn't look away from her beautiful face, enchanted by her beauty. A few more lectures we had together, I couldn't stop thinking about her. Then about a week later, I finally gathered the courage to ask her out. We went on a few dates, I met her parents, proposed to her, she said yes. We got married, had two beautiful daughters, spent fourteen beautiful years together, and the best years of my life. It made me grateful to see her on the day of that chemistry lecture, which was fourteen years ago today. That is why I want to black out today, so I don't miss her and cry my eyes out. Last year on this day, I was high, as always, I stumbled to the graveyard, laid down next to her gravestone and screamed at a guy there who tried to get me out of there, cause I didn't want to leave her grave. They got a few guys to kick me out and I was not welcomed there since. I don't want to throw another tantrum this year and I don't trust the drugged version of me, so I'm gonna spend today or maybe tomorrow too, asleep. The subway is swarmed, as always. I place myself on a wooden bench, away from the crowd of people waiting for a train to pick them up. I lower my hat and pull the collars of my jacket to hide my face as much as possible, trying my best to be unnoticeable. My dealer shows up within fifteen minutes and places himself next to me on the bench. He slides a small brown bag towards me and I pick it up. Along with the familiar sound of a small plastic bag, I hear a rattle as well. It sounded a lot like the sound of pills inside a small plastic bottle. "Psilocin, messes up the brain, will cause you to see things, but does a good job at knocking you out" He says. I nod and give him the payment. He gets up "get trippy" He says and leaves. I exit the subway five minutes after him so people don't get suspicious.

As I'm walking back home, I get a strong feeling that I'm being followed. And that's not good, since I'm carrying a small pack of drugs with me. I slowly turn around, to find a big dog, a German shepherd, growling at me. A police man was with him, holding the dog's leash. I freeze right there. This is bad. "Got a minute?, sir?" The cop asks.

Philip

"Good morning, officer!" Although I am freaking out on the inside, I have to sound and appear as calm as possible so he doesn't suspect a thing "how can I help you today?".

The cop looks at me for a while and then reaches for his pocket. I felt as if my heart just fell out of my chest. The dog continues to growl at me. He, for sure knows I'm carrying drugs. Dogs don't mess around with their sense of smell. They can smell drugs from another room. Finally the cop's hand comes out of his pocket and fortunately, it's not a gun or a handcuff. It's an A4 piece of paper folded neatly. He slowly opened it and held it up for me to see. It was a mugshot of a man, around mid thirties "Have you seen this man anywhere before?" He asks.

I squint my eyes while looking at the poster as if I'm trying to remember something although I've never seen him in my life. "Um, no sir, I don't think so" I shook my head. "People have been claiming that they caught sight of him around this neighborhood, he's the guy we've been trying to catch for months. Last month alone, he robbed three houses in a week" He holds three of his fingers up as if I don't know how many three is. "I'll keep an eye" I assure him. He nods "thanks, have a good one" He turns to leave. "You too" I reply. The dog is still growling at me, refusing to turn and follow his owner. The cop gives his leash a little pull and the dog turns and follows him and I walk away, sighing in relief.

Willow

It's ten minutes before school goes off when I'm called into the headmaster's office. I've never been called into her office before, usually people get called in of they've done something bad like got in a fight or violated dress code or got really bad grades. None of which I've done. But as soon as I get to the office, I'm informed that it's actually Lily who they want to tell me about. Apparently, she fell while playing in the school's playground during recess and got hurt. She was bawling her eyes out in the nurse's office, not letting anyone near her and kept calling for me. The second she saw me walking in, she opened her arms for a hug "Willow" She cries for me as if we haven't met in ages. I hug her, telling her that everything is alright. Her knee was bruised and she also scraped her elbow, but luckily no serious injuries. The nurse puts a bandage on her elbow and sone ointment in her knee "apply it one more time at night and it will be better in the morning" She instructs me and I nod.

At home, I make her a peanut butter sandwich and put on her favorite cartoon to cheer her up. Her ankle starts hurting again by ten pm. Remembering what the nurse told me, I go upstairs to look for that small green container if ointment with an unpleasant smell. But when I open it, it's empty. So I start searching for money and to my surprise, both the secret spots I hid my change, is empty. Dad. He took my savings. At this point, I'm losing my marbles. I sat down on the floor, take the hood off, uncovering my head and start pulling my hair in stress. I clench a big chunk of my hair strands and pull really hard. It hurts, it makes my scalp feel like it's burning, it hurts so bad, my eyes tear up, but I don't stop. I keep pulling, till my knuckles are cramping. After a minute, I release my hair. A few strands come with my hands. It takes a minute for the pain to leave my head but it goes away eventually. I pull myself together and get up, wiping my tears and look in the mirror. I see a small girl with pale skin and dry skin and skinny arms and legs. Most of my hair is gone and now I look like I'm going through chemotherapy. I pull the hood back up to cover my head again. I don't know when exactly the hair pulling became a habit, I used to do it subconsciously but even after I was aware that I'm physically hurting myself, I didn't stop. I guess it all started when mom died, and dad became an addict and lost his job, dropping all the family duties onto me, that's when I started to feel stressed, taking responsibility of my sister, my dad and myself, from day night, along with my studies, that's what drove me crazy. I cried a lot but it wasn't enough so I started pulling my hair. It was a sort of stress relief for me, and I never got rid of the habit. A month after trying to stop but still doing it, I googled it. Turns out it's actually a condition a person can suffer due to stress and anxiety. I blamed no one but my dad for all this. Sure, he lost his wife, but after that he totally forgot the fact that he has two kids. He was in mourning for the loss of his wife, but forgot that his kids lost their mom too. He could've looked out for us, making sure we never feel like we lost a parent, but he was too busy drugging himself. Maybe an average person would feel sorry for him if they heard his story, but not me. He's no victim he's just a, selfish man who chose drugs over his kids, and there's nothing sympathetic about that. He is the reason I'm in this condition. He did this to me. And I can't forgive him for that. I walk up to Lily's room with an ice pack, and  found her asleep peacefully. I smile. I don't know when was the, last time I slept peacefully. I felt bad for Lily, she was seven when mom died, she hardly knew her,and she's not close with dad either, cause he's always either high or not home when sober. All she has is me. I'm her guardian. I'm supposed to protect her and care for her. And I couldn't even get ointment for her bruise. I failed as her guardian.

I sit next to her on her bed. I know I should be in my room, on my bed by now, but I didn't want to leave this room. There's something so comforting and soothing about this room. The pale yellow walls, the cute and friendly looking soft toys, the crayon drawings on the walls. I prefer being here rather than being in my room. I don't like my room. Probably because my mom died in that room, right on the carpet near my bed. It's not like the room killed my mom, but still I don't like it anymore, and maybe I never will and maybe I'll never be able to stop pulling my hair, maybe I will never be able to put myself before others. But I can try.

Philip

I feel terrible. I took four of the pills my dealer gave me that were supposed to knock me our for awhile but I'm still here, standing strong. I go to my usual spot where I usually go to do heroin. A small abandoned park that is now almost isolated and kinda scary but I'm fine going there as long as there are no cops in the area. I sit down on the bench and inject some if the heroin in my left arm and the hungry monster inside me finally relaxed. But I'm afraid I'm too close to the cemetery where my wife is buried. I don't want to create a scene again. I might get the cops called on me this time and they'll throw me in for a good amount of time. I take the small plastic bottle out of my pocket and take four more pills so I can pass out. I was sure the pills didn't work until fifteen minutes later, I started to feel dizzy. With blur vision, I look around and I feel like I don't know where I am. I'm hearing things I can't describe. Like a static, white noise you hear when your tv's cable is not working. It's getting louder, to the point where it's deafening. I hold my ears to stop it but it won't go away. I'm seeing things, faces I can't recognize. They are like ghost faces. I feel like the ground is shaking, the bench I'm sitting on is shaking back in forth, trying to push me off of it, I get up, I'm running away, away from the faces, from the sounds. They are following me, the ghosts are after me, the sounds are following me. Running without looking forward, I bump into something, or someone and fall on my back. It's a person, a woman, with long hair, wearing a white long dress, slowly turning towards me. I'm still on the ground, not sure what to do. She turns around, looks down at my bloody face, shocking the hell out of me. I thought I'd never see her again. It's Sofie.

I stare up at her and I keep staring. Her pretty face, beautiful eyes, her precious smile. I can't believe this is happening. She came back. She came back for me. I missed her a lot but I don't have to anymore, cause she's here and I will never miss her again. "Hello, Philip" She says. I get up "Sofie, where were you?" I ask. She smiles wider, revealing her white teeth "I'm here now, for you". I gently touch her face, caressing her soft skin with my fingers " I missed you"

"I missed you too" She pulls me into a hug. I started crying, slowly falling down to her feet, now hugging her legs, my tears leaving fresh stains on her long and cold white dress. I'm thinking about how miserable I was for two years, making the worst decisions in life, not caring about anything going around me whatsoever, just watching days go by, mourning everyday, drugging myself, trying to move on. But not anymore, she's back now. Everything will be okay again. We can go back to being a family again. "Why did you leave? Why did you leave me here all alone?" I'm weeping. "You know I couldn't live without you, you know I'll hate a life without you, why did you leave?"

"I had to go, Phil" She replies calmly, taking my cold hands into her warm ones "I left, leaving you with my daughters for you to take care of". I looked up at her. She looks down at me, not smiling anymore. "They were your responsibility, Phil. Did you look out for them? Were you a good father?" She asked. I don't know what to say. She's waiting for an answer. "Uh.. I did.. I needed space, honey" I hesitate " No, I wasn't the best father, but I was devastated after losing you, I didn't know what to do"

"You didn't take care of my girls?"

"I.. I was not a bad father, I did bad things sometimes, I wasn't always there for them but I wasn't a bad father to them, I don't think so". She let's go of my hands and they fall to the ground. Looking down at me, she lowers her eyebrows, wrinkling her forehead " You didn't take care of my girls, you abandoned them?". I don't like her tone.

"OUR girls! And I did take care of them. I never hurt them, I provided them for as long as I could, but I was fired, what do you expect me to do? Huh? You know how depressed I was"

"Don't you get it, Phil. It isn't about you. It's about them" She points to the left, where stood Willow and Lily, holding hands. When did they get there?

"Why didn't you take care of us, dad?" Lily says with an expressionless face. I've never seen her so serious. I have nothing to say to her, which is embarrassing. I should have an answer. I should have an explanation.

"You didn't do anything for us, you left to do drugs, like a selfish person" said willow. As much as I'm appalled by her behavior, she's not wrong, unfortunately. I wasn't there for my kids, I was so busy dealing with myself that I forgot about my girls. And here I stand, in front of my wife and kids, and I have nothing to say to them. "You just had to be there for them, Philip" Sofie said sadly. "I'm sorry" I whisper. "You let me down, Philip" Sofie said expressionlessly. I opened my mouth but my mind couldn't think of anything to say at the moment. I let them down, I let Sofie down. I knew how much she loved them more than anything in the world and she left them as my responsibility and I let her down. "I'm sorry, Sofie" I look down at my muddy shoes. "I'm afraid it's too late now" She replied. I look up at her, confused. Her face is changing. At first it was just her angry expression, now it's getting scary. Her eyes turn red, the pupils turn from dark green to black. She is smirking at me. She is not Sofie anymore. She's a monster. "What.. What do you mean?" I mumble. "They're coming with me, somewhere they'll be loved and caressed" She opens both her arms as if she's about to give me a hug and both the girls walk towards her and hold each of her hands into theirs. She's taking them away from me. I hardly survived losing Sofie, how will I ever recover losing both my daughters. How can she just take them away from me. "No, no, you.. you can't do that to me. They're my kids too, you can't just snatch them away from me!" I run towards them, trying to grab the girls and pull them away from this witch but my way is foggy all of a sudden. I struggle to find the sight of my girls. I don't see them anymore. I step forward, flailing my arms, looking around for a glimpse of them, but they're nowhere to be found. It's all just a big zone of fog all around me. "No, no" I squint my eyes, hoping I'd see my girls in a distance but there's nothing. She took my girls away from me. "NO!" I grab my hair and scream, pulling my hair in despair. "NO! NO! NO!" I scream some more, stomping my feet like a child. Tears dripping from my cheeks. I lost everything. First my wife and now my daughters got taken away from me and I was able to do nothing about it, I just stood and watched like an idiot. I fall to the ground, where that witch and Willow and Lily stood about a minute ago. Defeated and desperate, I touch the ground, the cold concrete with a small layer of dust on it, and I clench my fists on the ground, filling my fists with the dust where my family was standing just a while ago, and cried until my tears damped the mud on the ground. "Are you okay?" I hear from a distance. I look up and find a middle aged woman, standing a few feet away from me, looking down at me, then at my left arm, which is purple and bleeding, and then back at me, mildly concerned. "What?" I ask.

"I asked if you were okay" She said politely. What does she care. I don't even know her. "I lost my daughters" I tell her anyway. "In.. In this park?"

"Yes" I cry.

She looked confused "well, uh.. When did you last see them" She asked in a light voice as if she was talking to a little kid. "About a minute ago". She scratches her head " Umm.. you should look around this area then, I guess" She suggests and I sigh. What's the point of that? They're gone, it's been done. They just vanished from in front of my eyes. All I can do now is sob and talk about it, even with a stranger. But why is she asking me about them? I look up at the woman "you took them" I state.

"Uh.. Pardon?" She's even more confused now. I get up on my feet again, convinced that she's that witch. She put my kids away and is here to taunt me now. "Where are the girls?" I ask, glaring at her. She stares at me on shock, clenching her purse, scared. "Where Are They?!" I ask again, walking towards her. "Sir, you need to back off" she whimpers, stepping away from me. But I won't let her get away this time. "WHERE ARE MY DAUGHTERS!?" I scream. "Hey, Back Off, BACK OFF!" she tries to get away but I grab her and push her down, throwing both of us on the ground. I'm on top of her, hitting her while continuously asking about my daughters. She's screaming for help, pushing me away, punching me, scratching my face but I'm not gonna let her get away this time. I hit her more until a couple of men come running towards us yelling at me to stop hitting her. I ignore and keep punching the woman's now bloody face until I am finally pulled away and pushed back by the men. One if them smack me in the face and I'm down.

Willow

Around 9 pm, our landline rings. I ask Lily to go get it because I'm doing the dishes. Dad's not home since morning, not that that's something new, not that I like waiting for him. But it's now an act if habit, looking at the front door, then looking at the clock and then looking at the door again. Although its no point in knowing, I still always know at the back of my head how long dad's been out. In a minute, Lily asks me to come over. "They're asking for dad" She says. I take the phone "hello?"

"Hi, this is the City Police station. Is this Willow? Mr. Watson's daughter?"

"Yes. Why?"

So apparently dad is in prison for taking drugs and hitting a woman who found him weeping in the family park that's placed by the end of the street. She asked him why he was crying and he went apeshit on her, asking where his daughters were. None of that I understand. The lady as well as dad were now in the hospital. I asked the cop.

"Your father had an overdose"

"Can I see him?" I can't believe I just said that.

We gasp when we see him. He looks terrible. He's pale, weak, his pale skin makes the bags under his eyes look more pink than the skin of a dragon fruit. The doctors said that he was lucky to survive. Usually people ego overdose on drugs don't make it, especially after taking half a bottle of a strong pill like Psilosin. I feel bad for him. I feel even worse when they tell me that his left arm was amputated because of an infection spreading in his arm that could've slowly killed him. I never knew that I'd ever feel bad for dad. For so long I've hated him, called him a selfish prick for doing drugs and not giving a shit about us. But I see today that addiction can't be just stopped. I'm sure he wanted to stop at some point but couldn't cause his body was too dependent on it now. I don't know what to say to him. He opens his eyes, looks up at me and then Lily and smiles. His smile fades after a few seconds. He's probably realizing that he messed up, and there would be consequences. "Hi, dad. How are you feeling?" Lily walks towards him and places herself next to him on his hospital bed, taking his right hand into hers. He smiles again "I'll be okay now that you two are here" He says, looking at me. I feel chills down my spine. Dad would probably face consequences for his actions, that could lead him to jail or rehab. Which means I'm going to lose my father too. He was not very helpful with anything but whether I want to admit it or not it was still good to have him around. But not anymore, he'll be taken away too. I walk towards him and sit on the centre of the bed.

Philip

My daughters are here, sitting with me on the bed. Although I'm in a lot of pain, I'm very happy. Because my daughters are here.

Willow

So dad's trial happened last week and his lawyer convinced the judge that dad's an addict and needs serious help. Dad was offered a deal that if he gives the name of his supplier, which he did, he won't be facing any jail time. Dad was given a few hours of community service and was taken to a well known rehab that offered him reduced charges for one year. Lily and I were taken in by our mom's sister, Aunt Rosie since she was the only legal guardian we could have at the time cause mom's parents died and our other aunts and uncles want nothing to do with us and dad's parents are in the senior home and sometimes they send us money. Dad doesn't even have any siblings. Aunt Rosie was glad to keep us until dad was out of rehab. She was a teacher at a local school and wasn't very well off but she liked to take care of us. I try my best to help her with household work as much as I can because I don't want us to be a burden on her in any kind if a way. A month after dad's stay at the rehab, he was finally allowed to have a family visit. The rehab centre was very strict about family visits and only allowed them once a month, which bummed me out a little but I was still excited to see him. As much as I liked staying at my aunt's house, I really missed dad. When we got there and he came to see us, I was surprised to see him. He looked a lot better than the last time I saw him. He looked stronger than before. We talked about school, our new and temporary home. He told us about how he was doing. "The first ten days were terrible, I was having withdrawals, I was really sick but I'm thirty days clean now, so that's that" He chuckles and I smile. It feels good to see him get better. Seeing him improve made me think about myself too. I've been putting myself through so much without paying any attention to my physical and mental health. Of course all this left a negative impact on me, the biggest one being my trichotillomania. I made my mind to get rid of this habit as soon as possible. Next week at school, I had a talk with the students councillor. I told her about my terrible habit of hair pulling, how and when it started. She listened carefully and told me a few things that could help me get rid of this habit. She told me some steps to cure my trichotillomania like keeping a journal to write about it whenever I feel like grabbing my hair and finding stress relief methods like a stress ball or something. She also gave me a fidget spinner and asked me to spin it whenever I'm stressing. I have been following these for weeks and I'm improving a little. Everytime I get stressfull or feel like I'm going to pull my hair, I grab my stress ball and squeeze it really hard. I also write about it whenever I feel stressed. There was a time when I panicked one night before a big test because I couldn't solve a mathematic equation and pulled my hair in distress. I stopped after a few seconds and none of my hair came off my scalp but I still felt bad for doing it again after doing so well for weeks. I talked with the councilor a few more times this month and told her about that incident. She said that I shouldn't beat myself up for it. I've been doing good for long and pulling my hair once is way better than doing that ten times a week, which I used to do. That made me feel a little better. My hair is starting to grow again as well. There are still some small spaces where hair hasn't grown yet, but I'm hoping my scalp would be full of hair again after some time. It might take a while but I'm okay with waiting. I learned that good things can take a while and not everything can always change and then go back to how it was before but we can hope for the best and keep pushing. Times change, people change and that's okay. I won't ever have my mom back, and my dad won't be the way he used to be, but I'm learning, recovering and most of all, I'm moving on.