Narrative

Kate Meyer May 12 2012 Ms. Dabrush L&L Section 1

“Tucker do you have your lunch?” “I am in high school I think I can take care of myself.” “Okay, just checking.” “Thanks mom, see you when I get home.” “Ok, bye Tucker.”  My mom was great, she was more than my mom she was my friend. My dad left when I was younger. I didn’t really know him all that well, I only can remember him swinging me on the swing at the local playground by the fire station. After he left, it was only me and my mom. One of my favorite memories with both my mom and my dad, was going down to our summer house on Elm Street and spending the summers together. It was always a goal of mine to find my dad one day. Even though there were and still are some hard feelings between them, I think it would be for the better to sit down as a family and talk. Without a dad life was not always the easiest, there was no one there when ever my mom was with her team. She went between boyfriend to boyfriend, all taking care of me when she was gone. At the time I thought it was just another babysitter. But now looking back on it, as a high school freshman, they were just men who wanted to be around my mom. Sometimes I would think it was just because she was famous. At the end of the day as a child, I always wished there was that one man waiting for me to get off the school bus and pick me up in his arms.  Though I missed out on having a dad for most of my life, I always felt like I had the most amazing mom in the world. She was, and to this day still is, all about dedication and hard work.  She was always good at basketball, she played all throughout middle school. However, in her freshman year she did not make her school’s team. Even though it was a shock to look down the team lists and not to see her name. She would never let something like that to get her down. She would tell me stories about all the summer days she would train and practice hoping to make the JV basketball team. She said every 20 or so minuets her mom would come outside calling “Hun, water?”  Turns out all the practice payed off. She made the varsity team her seiner year. That year she went on to be the caption of the team. By playing at the varsity level, she had more assists and was the high scorer on her team. My mom proved to everyone that she deserved to be on that team and play at that level.  After high school, my mom went to play collage ball, she loved it. She played for the LSU Lady Tigers, she ended the Naismith College Player of the Year. She won the Wooden Award and the Wade Trophy in 2005 and 2006. My mom was able to lead the Lady Tigers to three final four games. Even though the Lady Tigers team was good, they never made it past the semis. While my mom played for them, she averaged 19.3 points 5.2 rebounds and 2 assists per game.  After playing for the Lady Tigers in collage, my mom moved on to the WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) The Minnesota Lynx drafted my mom, first round, in the 2006 WNBA draft. The next month the Sports Illustrated came to interview my mom. The title of her article was Seimone Augustus, Next Michael Jordan? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Right about the time when my mom was starting to get involved with the WNBA and the Minnesota Lynx, was about the same time I was starting to get involved with my dad. Because he got up and left so quickly there was not much left about him to start off with. Even though I had low expectations for how it would go, I had to go talk to my mom. To this day I can still remember when I walked into the room she had just made her favorite green tea. The whole room smelled like fresh mint and was a little warmer than the rest of the house. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Hey mom, I have something I have been needing to ask you” I said dragging out my words to make a point. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Whats up Tuck?” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“ Even though you don’t talk about him a lot,” before I could finish she set down her tea and put down the Sports Illustrated magazine <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Your Dad..?” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Well yea”I said turning my head down to avoid eye contact <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Tucker you have to listen to me,” she grabbed my and and looked at me, dead in the eye, no chance of avoiding the awkward eye contact now. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“I know he is your father, but, he is not a good man. He knows how to use you and manipulate your feelings.” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Mom, I know that, but wouldn’t it be better for all of us to talk things out?” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“No” She said with a little more ‘snip’ than normal. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">There was nothing else to do, my mom was not the kind of person to change her mind about things like this. Even though my mom was not going to make it easy, I was not about to give up on finding my dad. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Then next day, the summer sun came blazing through my window and woke me up. I knew that if I didn’t do anything soon, there would be no chance of me finding my dad. So, first I ran downstairs to check if my mom had left for practice yet. Which she had, I went back upstairs and went into that place in the house where my mom always hid everything. When I was younger this was off limits not matter what and now I was looking there for anything my mom might of kept about my dad. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> There was a new addition to this drawer, anything I bought that she didn’t approve of. For example I found my favorite pair of summer shorts that were a bit too short for her liking there. I threw them on the floor to take them back to my room. Looking through there was like a maze. Bills. A pile of my baby pictures. A book I lent to my mom that I had not seen for a while. Then a pile of papers, the good stuff. To Do lists, Christmas lists. Then an untitled folder. I grabbed it, and slammed the the drawer shut, with a bit more excitement than I should have. I grabbed my shorts off the floor and ran back to my room. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> I flipped through the pages, one after another, making sure to keep them in order so my mom wouldn’t be able to tell I went into her drawer. I held up the stack of papers in the folder to see them closer. A picture of a cute little house fell out. It had red bricks leading up the it’s front door. The shutters were all open to the same degree and every plant looked like something straight out of a ‘Home and Decor’ magazine. The most interesting part of the whole finding was the little white dog sitting on the front lawn right smack in the middle. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Parker?” I whispered to myself. It was my dog that had died three years ago. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Who’s house it this? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Why would my mom have a picture of it? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Did it have anything to do with my dad? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Questions pored through my mind. My mom had always said <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“When things get too hard, take a sec” I did exactly that. I grabbed my shoes and ball and went outside. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> I stayed out there until my neighbor who comes over at night to make sure everything was buttoned up around the house came over. Even though, I told her almost everything I realized this one should stay hidden for a little while. I slipped the picture under my bed and when she walked in to say goodnight. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The next day as I pulled the picture of the house out from under my bed, I noticed there were the words “Elm St” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I knew we had a house on Elm Street where we spent the summers and it was not that one, but I wonder if it was one of them on the street. I called my friend Tate who had just gotten her drivers listens and could drive friends and family. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Hello” she said as she picked up the phone <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Hey Tate, I was wondering....” Then my phone buzzed. It was a call from my mom which was weird because I though she had a game today. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Hang on Tate, my mom is calling” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Ok, talk to you later, bye” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Bye” I just thought it was my mom saying hi. I could’t come to her game today because I was going t meet up with my grandma soon. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Hi Mom!” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Tate I am sending a car to come get you right now,” a deep voice replied. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“It’s about your mom, she is hurt.” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Please just come here as soon as you can.” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“OK, but wait...” Click, click. Just like that he was off the phone. Luckily it was a home game and only about and hour or so away. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">When the car pulled up, I got inside as quickly as I could. The women driving the car said <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Did you see what happened to your mama?” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“No! Did you” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“She went down hard in the game and couldn’t walk, she’s in the hospital now and that is where I am taking you” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">After a whole hour and a half in the car with a women who would not tell me much of anything, I ran into the hospital doors. There a man was sitting with a suite and looked unhappy. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Tucker?” The familiar voice said <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Where is my mom?” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“I will take you to her right not” The man was the voice on the phone. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">As I walked into room 307, I saw my mom with her leg elevated and warped. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Dug, sorry I haven’t been around much and we haven’t spent a lot of time together and now we are going 2 be able to spend less time together.” I could tell she had rehearsed in her head what she was going to say to me. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Mom, thats fine, but what happened to you” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“I tore my ACL in the game today. All it means is I am just going to have to spend a little time here and away from you and basketball” <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">For the first time in my life I was out of words. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Tuck, come here” she took my hand from my side and said <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">“Everything is going to be okay, this is just a little setback.” The look in her face reminded me of the time I tried to talk about Dad with her, it said things were not okay. She sent me back home no matter how much I wanted to stay with her that night. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">She got the surgery she needed for her ACL which was a bit nerve racking for both her and I. Now she is better after Physical Therapy for a few years, she was able to return to the WNBA Lynx. When my mom was in the hospital, I never said a word about finding the picture of the house in the folder. To be honest, I thought it was for the better if it was just my mom and I.