Ashley Merise
Mr. Karr
Composition 1
1 October 2013
The Untold Findings of Me
It all started the late summer of 2001. I was five years old, just moved from Dallas, Texas to Ohio. I was very scared to start kindergarten. I didn’t have many friends back in Texas, and knew no one in Ohio. I was hoping that started a new school would give me some friends, but I didn’t get that at all. In the past 12 years a lot has happen to me. I went through some bad bullying; I lost my father; and I moved to Pataskala. The city I moved to was Whitehall, Ohio, which is just ten minutes from Columbus. We lived in an average sized apartment, in the back of the neighborhood. There were a lot of kids to play with and I made some friends. As the three years went on kids came and went, as well as school happening. I got bullied on the regular basis, got made fun of and pushed around. The kids excluded me from all the games and activities that they were doing. At home though, the kids in the neighborhood treated me well. We all played and did things kids did at our age. However by 2nd grade things took a turn for the worst.
My father’s name was Joel Jean Merise and he was the second child in his family. He told me his father died in a car accident when he was a teenager. His mom lived in New York with his two older brothers. He met my mom in New York and after a year and six months they got married. Three years later they had me and a year and five months later my sister came along. We lived in New York until I was three and half and then we moved to Texas. We were there until I was five, then we moved to Ohio. I lived in Whitehall for six and half years. While living in Whitehall the kids weren’t the nicest to me. They would exclude me, make fun of me, do all the mean stuff kids would do at their age. By the second grade, the kids started getting worse they would make of the fact that my dad was sick and that he got sick because he didn’t want to be around me anymore. It really sucked going to school some days. I remember asking my mom if I can stay home sometimes because I was scared to go and see the kids from school. She would always yell at me and tell me that I’m overreacting. When third grade rolled around, my dad come home more often, which was nice, but he was still getting sicker. I can recall times when I would sit in the bathroom so I wouldn’t have to go back to class.
When dealing with my father dying, the bullying, and having no friends really took a toll on me. I started lashing out and becoming a problem to my mom and for the school. I got into fights, tried to steal, run away from home, I would threaten kids, but no one understood that it was because I was losing my dad. My mom said that I need to stop misbehaving because she couldn’t deal with my behavior and my father.
On Saturday February 11, 2006, I found out my daddy was gone. My grandma told me, but I didn’t believe her. I called my mom and asked to speak to him but she said I can’t and she’ll talk to me when she gets home. An hour later, she comes home with her best friend and my dad’s cousin. She sits my sister and I in her room and tells us that my dad had passed away and wasn’t coming back and she started crying; I realized she was telling the truth and I started crying too. I never even got to tell him that I love him. I couldn’t believe that he was gone and I could never see him again. Trying to dealing with the school kids that are still making fun of me and the death of my father was a lot to bear. I couldn’t really lash out because my mom was grieving and I didn’t want to be that selfish. All I could do was be there for everyone. I felt like I was the shoulder to cry on now. For my mom, my sister, for anyone that was affected by my father’s death, I was there for them. It sucked though because nobody was there for me. I had no shoulder to cry on.
When the funeral came around, it was weird at first. I hadn’t hit me yet that my dad was gone. The two days were a