My Family: My Father, My Hero

My life changed at the beginning of the new school year in 2005. While to many of my peers it was like hell returning to our dungeon of a school with its heavy fireproof doors and tall staircases it was about to change for me. This was the year I met Mr. Safford, he was my new teacher and he was my hero, a very tall black man with broad shoulders, with very large hands and dark brown hair…

Before this first day arrived I was very depressed. Life had lost all meaning to me and there was nothing I could do about it, or so I was told. You see, I lived with foster parents, white foster parents and I had since I was three. I didn’t know much about my birth parents let alone my last name, except that my mother died in a car accident and my father couldn’t support me anymore. As for my foster parents, they utterly disgust me not only how they treated me but also all the other black kids in the street. You could confidently say that when their time is up in this world they will definitely not be going to heaven, but to hell where they will rot. They deserve no better.

For me everything was about to change because I had Mr. Safford. He was the one who taught me, well, everything. He was the one who told me to not hate others for what they do but to forgive and to not accept how I have been treated. As time went on Mr. Safford and I became closer and developed a very good friendship. What most people didn’t know was that deep down he was a very gentle person and didn’t let his emotions hide away in the catacombs of his mind; instead he would reach deep down and bring them out. Sometimes he would even tell me about his little girl that he lost how much he missed her and how pretty she was. It made me ponder if my father missed me and w...

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...‘isn’t worth it’.”

“The boy last night who attacked you lunged at me and stabbed me. I took the knife from him and with anger overwhelming me I killed him and I’m going to jail for murder,” Anguish was evident in his sad eyes. “Sonya I’m sorry,” he murmured. I was lost. The only person I had loved was about to leave me.

“But what am I going to do?” The words struggled to leave my lips. A police man walked into the room.

“Sonya, there isn’t much more I can do except tell you that the pain will go away because, in three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about my life: it goes on.” The words just got out, and then the police man led my father out.

That was the last time I ever saw my father. I was told he got killed in jail but to this day I still have fond memories of my father. Even though he left me, my father was my hero. He gave me my life back.