The Story of My Life

The Story of My Life

By: Gary Timothy Everett

There are seminal moments, defining moments in life. And when they occur life is defined by them – what life was before that moment, what life was after that moment. Now, in my life there has been six to seven life altering moments or defining moments. So we need to start at the beginning, as a child I always felt different from other kids, people for that matter. I felt distant from my family, friends, and anyone who was “involved” in my life. I would always put these fake emotions on. I knew when I was and wasn’t supposed to act and feel, so I was really good about covering things up and I learned a lot of tricks. Like, if I needed to cry in the middle of the day, I would go to the bathroom and then I would do it, and then I would dilate my eyes so they wouldn’t look red afterward. All of these different things. I found the best places to go where people weren’t going to be looking at you all the time, and learned the right things to say and all this stuff, which is pretty resourceful for a 8 year old kid.

Then when I was, I think, 10, my cousin Jimmy was killed in a car accident on Father’s Day. This was the first time I experienced the death of someone close to me. Of course like most families, everyone is close when you;re young. It’s when your older tht you grow distant. I remember very clearly the night Jimmy was killed. Both of my parents worked second shift. So, my grandparents would watch us everyday. One night, the phone rang, it was maybe 3:00am. I remember because my dad  would pick us up at 4am or so. My Uncle Mike answered the phone; ” What!?, How!?,” He screamed into the phone. I knew something bad had happened. I was just waiting to find out exactly what. His eyes started to water, and grow red. Soon there was a constant stream of tears pouring out of his eyes. Uncle Mike hung up the phone and started smashing the numbers, he was dialing so fast. I don’t remember who he called first. But I’ll never forget what he said” It’s Little Jimmy, He’s dead”