My Country Pride

My family died. It was a year ago, but no amount of time could hide the pain. Both of my brothers, my mother, and my father passed away in a deadly car accident as they were coming to see my choir concert. A drunk semi-truck driver was the one who made it happen.

During the concert, I kept glancing around for my family in the audience, but I couldn't see anybody. Not a wave from my mother, not a loud cheer of encouragement from my two older brothers. I couldn't see anybody.

When the concert was over, I looked for them. It should have been simple since my oldest brother was over six and a half feet tall and always wore goofy looking hats, but they were nowhere to be found. I sat in the lobby of my school for about an hour until my cellphone rang in my pocket. The number was unrecognized, but I answered it anyway.

"Hello?"

"Is this Christen Conners?"

"Speaking,"

"There's been an accident,"

I went to the hospital, anyway, hoping that one of them could still be alive. I asked every doctor if I could see them, but they continually rejected my requests. I waited for news. Any news. Were they alive or not? My question was soon answered when a young nurse approached me, a dark shadow looming over her face. She didn't even have to speak. I could hear it from her countenance.

"None of them?" I asked, tears beginning to cascade down my face.

She shook her head.

I sobbed. I couldn't control my heaving sides or my struggling gasps for air. My heart pounded rapidly against my chest and in my ears so hard that fell to the ground in spasms. My body convulsed and twitched on the ground as numerous doctors came to my aid. They tried to help me off the ground, but they couldn't get a solid grip on my legs since they were kicking around erratically. One time, my leg struck a doctor's chest and he gasped out in shock and collapsed onto the ground. Until the nurse jabbed a needle into my arm, I continued kicking and shrieking.

I awoke hours later to find myself strapped to a hospital bed and unable to move. The room was silent and bare as I quivered with a sudden chill. I could hear the IV beeping steadily beside me and I looked down to see a long, narrow tube protruding from my right arm. I must be on a sedative right now. I couldn't feel anything. Not sadness, grief, mourning, I just felt... dead.

I should be dead. I thought to myself. I should be with them.

The hours turned into days. The days turned into weeks. The weeks turned into months. The court cases dragged on until my aunts could stop bickering about who was going to take care of me. Aunt Margaret was a chain smoker and refused to stop her habits to take custody. Aunt Jane was an alcoholic and wasted all of her money on expensive bourbon and whiskey and eventually had her house repossessed. Aunt Eliza had a criminal record for importing illegal drugs into the country and was finally on parol.

"You take this filthy little brat!"

"How could our sister have had children?"

"Downright despicable!"

"Dirty maggot!"

I couldn't shed a single tear as my aunts accused me of everything wrong that had happened. The judge continued to try and bring the court to order, but every time he struck the gavel down, my aunts would think of a better word to call me. Some of them I can't even repeat without shaming myself.

"I will have order in my courtroom!" The judge demanded, silencing my aunts for a few brief seconds so that he could speak. "This child needs a legal guardian!"

"Then send her to an orphanage so I don't have to deal with her!" Aunt Margaret screamed, choking slightly on a cigarette that had disappeared behind her teeth.

"Are there no other living relatives of Patricia Conners that could care for her?" The judge asked, glancing over to his aid while my aunts erupted into yet another argument.

"There is only one other, sir," the aid responded, flipping through pages of recorded files. "He lives in Colorado and he's Patricia's elder brother,"

"Does he have any criminal records?" The judge questioned.

"No, sir,"

"Any problems with drugs?"

"No, sir,"

"Does he live in a stable environment?"

The aid laughed.

"What's so funny about this case, Mr. Peterson?" The judge growled.

"Oh, nothing, sir!" Mr. Peterson quivered in his shoes and gulped nervously. "It's just when you said the word 'stable',"

"What about it?" I could tell that the judge was becoming perturbed.

"Well, Mr. Conners owns a farm. He's a very successful business man! In fact, he breeds cows, sheep, pigs, goats, and horses as well!"

"An animal man, you say?" The judge silently stroked his whitening beard and smiled. "Would he be willing to accept her?"

"I don't know, sir, but I could give him a call,"

"This court will have a short recess until five o'clock tomorrow," The judge stated bluntly as he dropped the gavel down once more.

I slowly stood from my seat and walked quietly towards the door, hoping that my aunts would not pursue me. They did.

"It's your fault that Patty is dead!" Aunt Jane screamed at me, clawing for my hair and howling like an insane animal. I could smell the bourbon protruding from her breath and I covered my nose with my sleeve. Aunt Eliza pulled out a small pouch filled with white powder and inhaled some of it into her nostrils. She sighed with relief and then glared at me.

"How could I keep my business going if I have a little tattle-tale like you in my home?" She started laughing loudly as the three of them walked out of the courthouse and into the night. I shivered from the cold and hoisted my jacket over my shoulders to block out the chill, but to no avail.

If my uncle didn't want me, then I would be sent to live in an orphanage. Those were the judge's exact words the next afternoon at 5 o'clock. Mr. Peterson was running late as was Aunt Jane (a few days later I learned that Aunt Jane had passed away in a bar fight over a half-broken bottle of whiskey).

Suddenly, Mr. Peterson ran into the room with a huge smile on his face. He walked up to the judge and whispered something in his ear. The judge smiled too and then looked over at me.

"Well, young lady, it looks like you're moving to Colorado," he picked up his gavel and prepared to give the final decree of the court. "Mr. Conners has agreed to take Christen Conners into his custody on his farm in Colorado. There she will stay until the state sees fit that she be removed from that area due to..."

The list dragged on and on as the judge listed events that could lead to my no longer living with my uncle. I've never met my uncle and my mother rarely spoke of him. But he was family. And family should be loved forever.