Reflection

That day, Mom got what she wanted. She passed on to, maybe, get to see her baby Adam. Four hours of Life Support, and I made Dad pull the plug. It wasn’t fair to keep her somewhere she obviously didn’t want to be.

Then, with Connor by my side, I spoke up. “You’re just as dead as she is Dad!” I told him. “Except your life support is writing! Maybe we should take you off it, and see if your heart can beat on its own.”

Maybe Mom’s death was a gift and a curse. You’d think that in a broken, unresponsive family, another death would mean hitting rock bottom, but for us, it was the beginning of an uphill battle.

We’ve seen the before and after pictures, now we’re working on what happens after that. Before, after, and then. Right now, we’re working on Then.

Connor’s still around. Actually, he’s pretty much been glued to me since the accident. I don’t let anyone call me Ashton anymore; it’s A.J.. Dad has got a real job, and he keeps promising that he won’t get consumed with his writing again.

He also keeps trying to make Connor and me a couple, and maybe someday it will happen. Jeremy went off to war about a month after the accident, and I was there to help see him off.

I don’t know. I figure that in a few months, I’ll look back at the Then picture, and it won’t seem so bad. For now… it’s still in the sketching stages, not really ready to show you yet.

 

“So,” I said to the class- who were all just staring at me silently, “I asked Ms. Redd to hand me back my paper and let me redo it because what I wrote wasn’t really who I was. It was only that part of me that I’d let everyone see.” I looked around at everyone.

“Really, we all have a before, after, and then, but the and then never really stops. It’s the pictures we take, the smiles we share, the friends we end up hating, and the boys we think we’ll never leave. So, what’s your and then looking like?”

I walked to my seat slowly and sat down quietly. Once there, I closed my eyes and breathed out. Connor squeezed my shoulder encouragingly, and we started through another day as we left children wondering just what their and then would be…

Author's Note

This is the end, and I hope it's made you think just what your And Then is going to look like once you're gone. Don't forget. You may not always be able to erase the lines you've made, but you can always make them into something new.

Reviews

[0_o Abbie]

I like this. This is really inspiring. I love the way it's ended. Really awesome. :D