A Strong, Independent Woman

When I got the call from my mother that morning, it was well past the time for my father to wake me up. She asked me to check on him. When I entered his bedroom I saw what appeared to me a joke. My father was always playing jokes. But this seemed too believable: he was completely still, his eyes wide open. My mother told me to leave the room and shut the door, that Daddy would be going away for a little while. Since I only saw him every other weekend, it didn’t seem so dramatic to me. I was much too preoccupied with the new coloring book my grandmother had brought me.