Through A Daughter's Eyes

I focus on my brother standing at the front of the room. He's reading a speech that he wrote, and, for the first time in my life, I see my big brother cry-in grief. I see my brother become overwhelmed and walk out of the room. I start to cry. My father passed away two days before, but his absence doesn't really hit me until I hear my brother make his speech at my father's funeral. I never imagined that, at fourteen, I would lose someone who meant so much to me. But, for three and a half weeks, I watched my dad lie in a hospital bed, slowly deteriorating. He died a week and five days before my fifteenth birthday. He died because of one thing--drinking. Alcohol killed him at the age of forty-seven. He left behind so many things, including my brother and me.