Dad is running around the house like mad. I can hardly bring myself to lift my feet off the chilly tiled floor this cold winter morning. I rub my eyes a little too much, little stars appear afloat in front of me. My brother, Curtis, is jumping around the house, he’s euphoric. It’s the lack of sleep mixed with the excitement of having a new baby brother. I drag myself towards the aggressively screaming woman in the silver soccermum kind of van, parked out the front of our two story, cottage styled house. This is my parent’s 3rd child. I, myself, am the oldest, Alice Marcovich, who has experienced 14 years of average existence. Curtis Marcovich, now the middle child, 6 years of irritating and infuriating living, has now got something new to give attention to and annoy. With our new baby brother on the way I know things around the house are going to get shaken up and turned on its head. My parents have settled down a lot since then, buying our own house with a stable income to support our family, they think it will be a much better environment for my new brother to be raised in. My mother is a loving woman who cares for the animals at the city zoo and volunteers at the pound every other weekend.
Dad is an engineer and entrepreneur, managing work and family was a juggling act for him but he is coping well. We’re waiting in the cold, superficial light filled corridor of the hospital. Mum and I both agreed we didn’t want to witness the birth and we think Curtis is a bit too young to understand what is happening. Half an hour passes, mum is yelling and cursing at everyone occasionally, she gets aggressive when she’s in a lot of pain. A few more minutes pass and the doctor arrives, it must be soon. It wasn’t long until we hear the soon to be familiar cry of our new baby brother and so we enter the room. One nurse cleans up the baby. The doctor and nurse is trying to help mum. Mum looks asleep. Dad cries her name. Sophia.
Sophia Marcovich was pronounced dead at 4.37am this cold, cold, winter morning.
Three weeks goes by and dad is struggling to keep himself together while trying to take care of our brother Callum. Curtis is still a bit young to understand what is happening and always asks where mum has gone, but he loves his new baby brother. I, however, do not know how to feel about him. Do I love him or hate him? Was the exchange of Callum’s new life for my mothers really worth it? Mum was taken too soon, she had so much life and love to share. This weight was dragging behind me everywhere I go, at school it pulls down my feelings, my energy and my grades. Its a sinkhole of draining and exhausting pain that I can not manage to escape. I find myself staying after class at school, for me, it’s becoming easier to get attached to something else in order to think less about what catastrophic disaster has meteored my world, leaving