Long Way Down

Chapter One

The thought of being seventeen - going - on - eighteen started out as a stressful thought - but as soon as I took a long on the positive side, my worried thoughts began to shift. I remembered what my father told me when I was eight.

When I was a little girl, my father told me that when I turned eighteen he would take me on a trip to Los Angeles.

"Why Los Angeles," I would ask. My father would respond right away and say that LA is the city of dreams. I was excited because I would get to go on a trip with my dad, just him and I, but also because LA's long ways away from England...which is where I live. Years passed and I looked forward to this trip with my father. My father was a business man, and would leave for work at five o'clock in the morning so that he could make it home for dinner every night. Of course, dinner was my favorite part of the day. After dinner at around 8 o'clock, he and I would talk for about an hour. I always think of him as a funny, adventurous dad with many jokes to tell, but as soon as he was diagnosed with Cancer, that all changed.

My father was always tired, not up for any activity. He spent too much time in the hospital and ate his dinners there as well. I wanted to spend all my time with my father, but I didn't know how. He was tired and sick and was physically unable to do lots of things. We would talk for hours, my father laying on his hospital bed, and I sitting on the stool I would pull closer to the bed.

My father's speech began to slow down and his face would get more pale every day.

On June seventh, the day before my birthday, my father passed.