Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II (46 page)

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Authors: Jack Canfield,Mark Victor Hansen,Kimberly Kirberger

BOOK: Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul II
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Page 267
7
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
It's important to be involved and stand up for what you believe in.
Ione Skye

 

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For You, Dad
"Here we go!" Dad would say, and I'd climb on his back. "There! Look! See London Bridge?"
Lying on the floor with his arms outstretched, he was my Superman and together we were weaving our way around make-believe clouds. But like those clouds, my moments with Dad always vanished too quicklybecause there was something stronger than love in Daddy's life, something that was stealing him away. It was an enemy I would end up fighting when he no longer could. . . .
"He's sick," my mother would say when Dad passed out. "It doesn't mean that he doesn't love you."
I knew he did. He could make us laugh with his funny faces and cartoon drawings. I loved him, and I wanted to believe Mom still did, too. As my little brothers and I grew, she explained that Dad hadn't always been "this way." He was just a little wild when they'd met in high school. And with his wavy hair and wide smile, I could understand how he'd captured Mom's heart.
But soon he must have been breaking it. Sometimes we didn't see him for weeks. One day, he called to say he

 

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wasn't coming home again. "I'm not far. We'll see each other on weekends," he said after he'd moved out. "I'll swing by and get you Saturday."
"Mom," I called out. "Can we go with Daddy?"
Grabbing the phone, Mom said, "No, John, you have to visit them at the house. You know I won't let them get into a car with you."
I thought of the commercials I saw on TVthe ones with the twisted metal and chalk outlines. And the words
Drunk driving kills
. Could that happen to Daddy?
Please God
, I'd pray at night,
help Daddy get well
. But too often, when he pulled into the driveway, we could smell the booze.
"Daddy, don't drive like that," I'd plead. Usually, he tried to shrug off my worries, but once he pulled me close, his eyes heavy with sadness. "I wish I wasn't like this," he said. "I wish I was a good dad."
I wished that, too. I hated alcohol for what it had doneto all of us.
At first, I was too embarrassed to tell my friends the truth about my dad. But as I started to see kids drinking, I couldn't hold back. "That's why my dad isn't around," I'd say, pointing to the bottles.
All Dad's visits were brief. In between hugs and kisses, he drew pictures for us, and we crammed in stories about school and friends. "I'm getting help," he'd say. Maybe my brothers, Justin and Jordan, believed itbut I didn't. And yet with all my heart, I wanted to believe. I can still feel the rocking of the porch swing and my father's arm around my shoulder.
"The day you turn sixteen," he once said, "I'm going to buy you a car." I nuzzled closer to him. I knew he'd give me the world if he could. But I understood that no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't.
Then one night during my senior year of high school,

 

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I got a call at the store where I worked part-time. "Heather?" Mom's voice was strained. I knew what was coming. "There's been an accident."
I raced to the hospital; Dad's motorcycle had hit a mini-van. Blood tests showed he'd been drinking and doing drugs that night. The other driver was fine, thank God.
"I love you, Daddy," I sobbed, sitting by his bed. Though he was unconscious, his heart monitor quickened at the sound of my voice. He had found a way to let me know he'd heard me, and that he loved me. But there was something I had to make sure that he knew.
"I forgive you," I choked. "I know you did your best."
Moments later, he was gone. An accident killed my father, but his death was not sudden.
Everyone told me I needed to grieve, and for a while, I did. But in a sense, I'd been grieving for Dad all my life. Now I needed to do something that would help me feel less powerless against the enemy that had stolen him.
I went to the library to find what I could on substance abuse.
Almost every family is affected. . . . Children may repeat the patterns
, I read. My heart broke even more. My father's life hadn't amounted to very much. Maybe his death could.
That afternoon, I picked up the phone and called the area schools. "I'd like to talk about substance abuse," I began. "I've lived with it in my own family, so I think I can help."
Before I knew it, I was standing before a sea of young faces ready to speak, in a presentation called "Drug-Free Me."
"People who do drugs and alcohol aren't bad," I began. "They've just made the wrong choice." Then I asked the kids to draw pictures of what they wanted to be. They drew firemen and doctors and astronauts.
"See all those pretty dreams? They can never come true if you turn to drugs and alcohol." Their eyes grew wide.

 

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I'm reaching them
, I thought. But I knew it wasn't that simpleI'd have to keep trying every day if I really wanted to make a difference.
Since then, I've used cartoon characters to get the message to younger kids. I've organized a tuxedo-stuffing program, sticking statistics on drunk driving into pockets of prom-goers. And I've joined Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the National Commission on Drunk Driving.
Today, as a college junior, I do presentations at middle and high schools. I also speak at victim-impact panels, sharing stories of loss with people convicted of driving under the influence. Most people on the panel have lost loved ones to people like my father. But I was a victim, too, and maybe my story hits harder.
''It's hard to think of a faceless stranger out there you may kill," I tell the offenders. "So think about the people you are hurting nowlike a child at home who will miss you forever if you die."
I'd been missing my father long before he was taken for good. I remember once he said that we, his children, were the only things he'd ever done right in his life. Daddy, because of you, I'm doing something very right in mine.
Heather Metzger
As told to Bill Holton
Woman's World Magazine

 

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Somebody Loves You
Don't forget to be kind to strangers. For some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.
Hebrews 13:2
One miserable rainy night, a man named Mark decided to end his life. In his mid-fifties, Mark had never been married, had never experienced the joy of having children or spending holidays with his family. Both his parents had been dead for seven years. He had a sister but had lost contact with her. He held a menial job that left him unfulfilled. Wet and unhappy, he walked the streets, feeling as if there was nobody in the entire world that cared if he lived or died.
On that same soggy night, I was sitting in my room watching the rain hit my window. I was six years old, and my life revolved around my Star Wars action figure collection. I was dreaming of the day when I'd have earned enough money to add Darth Vader to my new collector's case. To help me make money, my father paid me to jog with him. Every day, at seven o'clock, we jogged together.

 

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And every day, I was fifty cents closer to getting Darth Vader.
When I heard the doorbell ring, I jumped from my chair and raced out of my room to the top of the steps. My mother was already at the door.
Opening it, she found herself face-to-face with a very disheveled-looking man with tears streaming down his face. My mother, overcome by pity, invited the man inside, and he sat with my parents in our living room.
Curious, I snuck downstairs so that I could get a better look. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but the sight of the rumpled man, holding his head in his hands and crying, made my chest ache. I raced back upstairs to my room and stuck my hand into my money jar. Pulling out the Kennedy half-dollar I had earned that day, I ran back downstairs.
When I reached the door of the living room, I walked right in. The three adults looked at me in surprise as I quickly made my way over to the stranger. I put the half-dollar in his hand and told him that I wanted him to have it. Then I gave him a hug and turned and ran as fast as I could out of the room and back up the stairs. I felt embarrassed but happy.
Downstairs, Mark sat quietly with his head bowed. Tears streamed down his face as he tightly clutched that coin. Finally looking up at my parents, he said, "It's just that I thought nobody cared. For the last twenty years, I have been so alone. That was the first hug I have gotten inI don't know how long. It's hard to believe that somebody cares."
Mark's life changed that night. When he left our house, he was ready to live instead of die. Although my family never saw Mark again, we received letters from him every once in a while, letting us know that he was doing fine.
Being a six-year-old kid, I hadn't thought about what I

 

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was doing that night. I had just reacted to the sight of someone else's pain. On our morning jogs, my dad and I had talked about the importance of giving, but I hadn't had any idea of what it really meant. My life changed that night, too, as I witnessed the true healing power of giving. Even if it's only a gift of fifty cents.
Before Mark left, my parents asked him why he had knocked on our door. Mark said that as he'd walked the streets that rainy night, hopeless and ready to die, he had noticed a bumper sticker on a car. He'd stood in the driveway and wondered about the people who lived in the house where the car was parked. Then, in a fog of unhappiness, he had made his way to the front door. It's hard to imagine that a bumper sticker and fifty cents could change two people's lives, but somehow they did.
The bumper sticker on our car read: SOMEBODY LOVES YOU.
Wil Horneff

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