When you're young, you take a lot of things for granted, because life has fooled you into thinking certain aspects of life will always be there.

When you're young, you can think your father will always be there to kiss you good night, and that your mother will always be ready to make you a meal. You can tell yourself that you'll always be safe in bed at night, and that your big brother will always be willing to help you find your way to the toilet. You can learn what "normal" means, and you can assume the concept will last forever.

When you're young, anything and everything can change your world.

You can wake up one morning to find that your father has disappeared. You can wait for him, because he's never given any indication that he intended to leave you behind, so he must be coming back, right?

Yes, you can wait, but waiting never solved anything before.

You can watch your good friend suffer from this same loneliness, this same lack of certainty. She too, has been waiting for parents. They will never come back. Not ever.

In this way, you get your first taste of that evil called death. It's a strange, unnatural, disgusting taste that even cookies and milk can't wash away.

You can come home from school to learn that your mother is ill, and far too weak to care of herself, much less her children. You can discover that responsibility is one of the most difficult lessons to learn. You will come through, though. You have to.

You can wait for her to get better, but you've already learned that this approach does no good. Waiting for your mother to live is no different than waiting for her to die.

Finally, you get to taste sadness on a much more personal level. In great quantities, it tastes like drowning, or maybe that's just your own face covered in your own tears.

Your brother shows you just how tough he can act, and you follow his lead. You know how much you hate waiting, and he has a plan that will fix everything.

Does it surprise you that even your big brother's plans can go completely and utterly wrong?

You can still learn that, no matter how huge the mistake, he won't give up on you. That you're all he has left.

You can learn how much your only brother loves you.