Peace

I dreamt of Ben. In my dream, he was laughing and swimming in a lake. I tried to call to him, but he just kept laughing. I tried to reach out to him, but he swam away from me. What does this mean? That he is a happy place now? I still miss him so much…

I started my babysitting job recently. I decided that Mrs Maynard (Jackie’s mom) has been too protective of Jackie. She puts on Jackie’s clothes for her, feeds her, brushes her hair… Jackie is not allowed to do anything at all! I decided that I am going to teach Jackie how to brush her hair. It’s going to be a secret. I’ll teach her and then give Mrs Maynard a lovely surprise.

Oh, talking about surprises, I was surprised today. I met Tony again. Yes, the boy I have been dreaming about for the past few months… Tony is Jackie’s brother! He’s still as handsome as I remembered, but I realize he’s not a very nice person. He’s rude, and bossy. He didn’t even greet his mother when Mrs Maynard came home, and just asked her to wash his dirty clothes. And he told me to make breakfast for him! I mean, I am employed as a baby sitter, not a maid! I was not too happy about it, but still, I thought I’d be nice and make him something to eat. Tony looked down on his sister too. I think he blames her for causing his parents’ divorce. He thinks that Mrs Maynard spends so much time taking care of Jackie that she has no time for him and his father. Suddenly, I pitied Tony. I realize he has a lot in common with my own sister, Katy – a lonely child who feels jealous because he is not getting enough attention from his mother.


Just yesterday, I think I managed to get Tony to get along with his sister. He is going to help me to teach Jackie how to put on her shoes!

I met Mr Henderson one day while taking Jackie out on a walk. He told me to go back to youth club and said that Jeff mentioned that he misses me. Oh my, what can this mean ~~~ ? We went to visit Ben’s gravestone. Jackie was playing in the cemetery, and I wanted to tell her to stop at first. However, I thought that Ben would have wanted her to be playing and having fun, so in the end, I let Jackie play. Ben would have joined her in playing if he could…

Anna

Life after Death.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a funeral. I had been expecting Ben’s funeral to be very serious and gloomy, but it was not like that at all. It was a bright and sunny day – not at all like what a funeral was supposed to be like. We all said our last goodbyes to our dear sweet Ben, and Mr Henderson said something that really made us feel a bit better.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

I think Mr Henderson means that people like Ben, who are so innocent and sweet and who has not learnt the bad part of human nature, will be happy when they leave this world, because they will go to Heaven and be happy with God. When we heard what Mr Henderson said, we all felt better because we knew that our dear Ben is happy with God in Heaven...

We started to try and get back to our normal lives. Sometimes, I start to feel a bit better and then suddenly I will feel guilty about the fact that I am not feeling sad that Ben is gone... =( What’s wrong with me?

It was very hard for us to look at Ben’s clothes and toys after he passed away. They reminded us so much of him.. However, one day, we took out all his clothes and toys and decided to donate them to charity. I think he would have wanted us to do that – he would have wanted us to help other unfortunate childeren just like himself...

One day at work... I met a little girl... Oh dear.. how she reminds me of Ben!
Her name is Jackie. She has Down’s Syndrome, so she does not learn things as quickly as normal children. But she is lovely. I like her, and I like her mother too.

Guess what? Her mother offered to employ me as a babysitter for Jackie! I am going to love Jackie the same way I love Ben. I promise...

Yours Always,Anna

Pain

A day had passed. 2 minutes ago, I walked past his room on the way to my own room Still, it feels almost unreal. I have to keep telling myself that it is true, because for some reason, a part of me refuses to believe the truth. And every time I have to tell myself that Ben is dead and gone forever, my heart breaks all over again and my world comes crashing down.

Yes. Ben, my lovely Ben… Benedict – He who is blessed, is dead.

The poor child has always been a weak baby. He suffered so much when he gets sick. It’s the problem with his breathing. He can’t breathe properly when he is sick with flu. Whenever he got sick, it took him so long to recover each time.

The night before he got sick, he was trying to play with me. I thought he looked so cute and lovable. I didn’t play with him for very long, though. If only… OH IF ONLY I HAD KNOWN! I would have played with him forever!!! As long as he wanted and as long as he could play with me…

I heard him crying and whining in pain during the night. I was sick with flu myself, and the medicine I took made me go to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, Ben was dead.

Gone. Forever.

I did not cry when I found out he was dead. I could not. All I could feel was a numb pain. All I could focus on was that pain caused by the thought that I will never again hear that sweet laughter or see that adorable grin. Ben will never kiss me again. Ben will never play with me again.

It was not until I went into his room to open the window - the way he liked it so that he could see the birds outside – and kissed him, and said goodbye to him, that I started to cry. And when I started to cry, I could not stop. I cried until I had no more tears left to cry…

Anna

NEW JOB!!!

I thought it would be good to try and get a part-time job. After all, I can then earn some money so I can buy nice clothes with my own money instead of having to ask money from my parents.

Well, I did NOT get that cashier job at the supermarket that I was hoping for… L

BUT! Dear, sweet Mrs. Chapman… <3 <3 <3
She offered me a job at her shop! Basically, I just need to help Mrs. Chapman collect money from her customers when they buy things. Mrs. Chapman told me that she offered me the job so that she can relax once in awhile, but somehow, I know that she gave me the job because she really wants to help me…

Working is NOT easy. I had to learn so many things. For example, I have to know where everything is placed so that I can tell the customers where to look for things.

Also, * the most difficult thing about working * - is that I have to deal with so many different kinds of people. Some of these people seem to be quite “strange” and I am not always very happy to be dealing with them…

However, I am VERY glad to be working at Mrs. Chapman’s shop. It is not only because I get to earn some pocket money, I am happy, mostly because I feel that I get to meet all kinds of people I have never met before. Can you imagine how exciting it is, to be learning about the different kinds of people in this world?

For example, there was a very rich lady who stole a very cheap pen from Mrs. Chapman’s store today! I saw her! I was wondering why a rich person would do that… Then, Mrs. Chapman told me that these people steal things just for the excitement.

I think it’s sad. These people are pitiful. Their lives are so meaningless that they have to resort to stealing just so that they can feel excited…

Yours Always (and lovingly),
Anna Peacock

Changes in my life.

Remember how I said that I was fine with M liking Tony? Well, I still don’t hate her, of course, but she’s really starting to get on my nerves. “Why?” - you may ask. Well, I’m getting seriously sick of the way she keeps on talking on and on non-stop about Tony all the time! Seriously, sometimes I cannot stand the way she will talk about how she will try to find opportunities to meet Tony alone. She even said she wanted to invite him to her house! And… AND… the part I’m most irritated about is that she is STILL flirting around with boys even though she says she is in love with Tony!!! I have not been hanging out with her so often now. Still, I can honestly say that it’s not jealousy that I’m feeling. It’s just… irritating to hear her talk like that, you know?

Now, I have to stop my ranting for a bit and thank all of you lovely people for giving me advice over the past few weeks. You girls and dudes have really helped me a lot and I really appreciate your comments. You comfort me and help me through the times when I am feeling stressed. HERE’S A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL!!! *Hugs*

Because of your advice, I managed to understand the situation my Mom is in. I realise that I have not been very fair to her by blaming her for everything. After all, she is also feeling stressed over having to take care of Ben too.

A few days ago, Katy had her 10th birthday. At first, Mom had no time and energy to organize a birthday party for her and Katy was very angry. They had a quarrel and I was about to take Katy’s side when I suddenly realised that Mom was looking extremely stressed out and tired. At that moment, I suddenly understood that it must have been really tiring to take care of Ben, and I pitied her. So, I offered to be the one to organize Katy’s birthday party.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I get along better with Katy now. I used to think she was irritating and childish. She is not exactly very mature yet, but she has stopped acting like a baby. I’m not so irritated by her now and I quite like it when sometimes, we spend some time with each other. Occasionally, we still quarrel, but as compared to the past, I think that I like Katy a lot more and we are much closer to each other now.

Yours Hopefully,
Anna.

My life keeps getting worse..

Mr Henderson came by to visit today. He’s the priest in our local church. You might be wondering why he would come to visit our family. Well, it turns out that he was wondering if I would like to join the Youth Club…

Hahahahahah!!! Can you believe it? Me?! I did go to a Youth Club once, long ago but I stopped. What makes him think I would like to go to another Youth Club? Oh well… I DO like Mr Henderson… He’s the sort of nice, old man that you just feel like respecting… Since I like and respect him, I said “yes”, of course.

I thought I would not like Youth Club at first, but I was wrong ~

It was quite fun actually. Other than talking and laughing with one another, we play games like table tennis and sometime, we throw darts. I made some friends. One of them is a girl named Diana. She’s nice and I really like her.

Now, the interesting bit is coming… The other friend I made at Youth Club is called Jeff. He has this nice, funny, bouncy way of walking and he has curly, blond hair. He always has a cheeky grin too, and he’s forever saying and doing funny things to make everybody laugh. Somehow, I think he likes me… He’s always trying to ‘arrange’ it so that we will end up playing table tennis together.

Well… that was what I thought until one horrible day…

I received a message from Mr Henderson saying that Jeff wanted to meet me at the train station.
I thought it was a date!!! I was feeling so excited and happy!
However… However… it was all a horrible mistake! Mr Henderson heard wrongly! Jeff did not ask to meet me at all! *cries*
When I got to the train station, I saw Diana coming to meet Jeff. It turns out that Jeff had asked Diana to help him with a Garage Sale project. All the same, I was feeling embarrassed for thinking that Jeff wanted to date me…

I DID learn a lesson from this incident though… I realised that if I can be attracted to Jeff, then maybe… I am not in love with Tony after all…


Yours Always,
Anna

My Life is a Downward Spiral

Well, I know it’s been awhile since I’ve last posted. It’s just that I’ve started school and we all know that the beginning of the school term is always busy.

Ben’s been very ill. Mom had to take him to the hospital again. He had been in there so many times. There was once when he was admitted into hospital so they could put in a special equipment to take some of the fluid out of his head. Apparently, it was not possible to take out all of the fluid. He had also been admitted because he gets so sick, so easily. Normally, illnesses such as a cold, that other babies would have recovered from easily, would make Ben suffer a lot and he would take a long time to recover. It frightens me whenever he gets a cold. It’s so hard for him to breathe and my heart breaks when I see him fighting for breath.

Sometimes, I think my family is going to fall apart, if my parents are not careful. To be honest, my family life these past couple of months has been really awful. Recently, mom has been talking on the phone to Aunt Janice and many times, I’ve heard her complaining about Dad. She always stops when she sees me listening.

Ever since Dad got the job that requires him to regularly travel overseas, we haven’t been seeing him at home much. Whenever he comes home now, he’s always so serious. He will never joke around with us like he used to and I blame Mom for it. It’s ALL her fault. Whenever he starts to joke with us, she will look at him angrily and say sarcastic things like,

“No wonder you’re always in a good mood. After all, you’re not the one who has to be stuck at home taking care of a sick kid and with no one to talk to.”

Can you believe that? Poor dad will then stop smiling, and look guilty and irritated. Can you blame him? And I’m so insulted! She said she has no one to talk to. What am I? Am I a Nobody?!?! And I’m irritated by the way she complains to Aunt Janice about Dad. When I grow up, I’m never going to talk bad about people behind their backs. It’s just not right!


Worried and Irritated,
Anna Peacock.