A Sad Beginning

I looked into the dark, taunting brown eyes of my pet. Then, I jumped, hoping to outsmart him. I landed on my face while my dog was suddenly three feet away from me.

I looked up into the sky blue eyes of my laughing maid and she told me, "Emmet, my boy, you're going to hurt yourself someday. You think you're a fifty foot man, but you are only a small five year-old boy. Now go dust off your pants."

"Yes, ma'am," I replied happily. So what if I was five. Father said someday I would be a big man, unstoppable, too. I believed him.

My father was a hunter. He was often gone on hunting trips, this was one of those days he was gone from dawn to dusk.

When I turned three, he got me a dog to keep me busy while he was gone. That was also the year I lost my mother. She was a wonderful lady, my father says, but I don't remember her much.

"She was very ill," Father said. I do remember that I sat by her every day she was in the hospital.

But on that last day I saw her, a man with pale skin, gold eyes, and light blonde hair came in to see her. He told me to run along for a while. I climbed into her bed, gave her a small kiss on her cheek, and smiled widely. "I love you Mommy," was the last thing I told her.

I couldn't forget those eyes though. The doctor's eyes would haunt me in my dreams for many years to come.

I snapped back to reality. I went and got a new pair of shorts on and went to tell Annabelle, our maid, I was going outside to play with the other kids.

I heard a gunshot and started running toward the source. I found Annabelle there on the floor. I thought she was sleeping, but when Father came home he said she would be asleep forever.

That was the evening we I lost the only thing close to a mother I had ever had.