Cassandra Asbury
Eng 101-104
Mr. Neuburger
28 January 2013
My Life Event
Growing up I only wanted one thing out of life; that was to be successful. I thought that I had it all as a child, until the day that i realized my parents were getting a divorce. It was one of the hardest things I think a child should ever have to go through. I started to slip up in school. I became unsociable and wanted to shut the world off. My parents thought it was due to the school system so they sent me away to live with my grandparents. As a child, I thought they were boring old farts in which did nothing but sleep, eat and watch television. I am sure that I gave them a hard time. As a matter of fact, I remember my grandmother putting me in my place a few times as my grandfather sat in his chair laughing. Aside from that, I was more into making something out of my life now that I thought my parents didnt want me anymore. I started participating in athletics. I became a cheerleader and started playing volleyball with the neighborhood kids. I was more interested in being active, which made me slack off when it came to cheerleading.
As I got a little bit older, I would say early high school years, I realized that sports made my life great. I was actually happy and involved in the social aspect of my childhood. Although my parents were still seperated, they did actually speak to one another more and I finally got to move in with my father and brother. I guess things were just hard for them when they split. Maybe thast is why I was with my grandparents. Anyways, I started paying attention in cheerleading again, started running track, became a wrestler and started putting volleyball before anything else. I then realixed that volleyball was my life. I went to competitions as a cheerleader, went to state as a wrestler and ended up quitting track all by the end of my sophomore year. Over the summer I realized that my father and brother were not into the things I was into. Neither one of them wanted to do anything with me, so I talked to my mother about living with her. By the start of my junior year; I was living with my mother and little sister. Everything was going extremely well for that entire year. I was better then I thought I could ever be at volleyball. I quit all other activities to put my entire focus on volleyball and keeping my GPA high enough to play. I applied to Nebraska University. I was accepted and was granted a scholarship to play volleyball for them, once I graduated high school. I knew then that I was going to be successfull in life. Just as I wanted to be all of my childhood, but I was wrong.
The summer between my junior and senior year was the start of the falling of my life as I called it. I thought that my senior year would fly by. My little sister and I had formed a bond so close that everyone thought she was my daughter and not my little sister, while my mother and I were more like best friends rather then mother daughter. Until she met a man. A man that would later ruin all of our lives and not even know it. My mother moved him into our house. He seemed to be a wonderful man. Gave us almost anything we could have ever asked for. Life seemed so wonderful; my mother was finally smiling everyday and my sister had a father figure in her life. I enjoyed it all to well.
A few weeks before school was to start back up, my mother decided to take my sister and I shopping. We left that morning and went on what seemed to be an all day adventure. I remember this day as if it were yesterday. We returned to the house and saw that we had al new furniture. It was more he couch was so big I could sit all the way back on it and my feet would dangle without even touching the floor. I got a text message about a party that night that a few people were throwing out in the country as a back to school bash for the seniors. My mother said that I could go, yet I felt something was wrong with her just by the tone of her voice. I left the house before it got dark outside and went to the party. I was there for about an hour before I got a call from my mother asking me to come home. She didnt sound to happy and I know I didnt do anything wrong, but I went home anyways. As I was turning onto our street; I noticed there were a lot of vehicles parked around our house. They were not regular vehicles; more like undercover police vehicles. My heart started to beat super fast and I could feel goosebumps start to appear all over my body.
I parked my mothers car about three houses down. That was as close as I could get to my house. I started walking up the sidewalk to my house; I could hear yelling and deep voices under the crying of my little sister. I was hesitant to go inside but realized the door had been kicked in. I walked in only to see a gun to my mothers boyfriends head, my mother handcuffed sitting on the couch and an officer trying to get my little sister to stop crying. I walked over to my little sister and grabbed her. We went and sat on the couch next to my mother; only because they told us we were not allowed to leave the house. The police were ramsacking the house. One officer was going through all the closets while the others were tearing aprat the rooms. I am not sure at this point what they were searching for, so we all just sat there patiently waiting for it to be over. An officer yells from my mothers bedroom and all the remaining officers take my mothers boyfriend in the room. We cannot hear anything. Moments later they escort him to one of the vehicles that is parked outside. One of the officers comes back in to tell my mother what is going on. I am listening carefully to everything that is coming out of their mouths.
As I am listening to the officers speak to my mother; I hear them say that they have been watching her boyfriend for over five years now. They have been watching his every move and are getting him on drug charges. They call themselves the US Marshells. I see my mother start to cry and then I hear her ask about us girls. They said I was fine due to the fact that I was seventeen, but my little sister would be taken into child custody services. They walked my mother to the car and put her in the backseat of a different one then her boyfriend. As all of the officers begin to leave the house, one stops and tells me that I am lucky this is all that happened. I ask him why my mother had been arrested if she had nothing to do with it. He told me that the Marshells were going to make an example out of her, even though they knew she wad nothing to do with it. He then told me that someone from child services would be at my house in the morning to pick up my little sister.
A couple of days had passed and I still have yet to get a knock at the door. I decide to take things into my own hands. I have missed a few volleyball practices already. I got my little sister ready, who is only six years old at t his time, and I head to the gym were my practice took place. I told my little sister to sit on the bleachers and color until practice was over. She listened to me and behaved very well. At that point I knew that I had to do something. I could not let her be taken away from the only person left in her life. After practice I spoke to some of my team mates about helping me out with food and making sure that I get her to class on time everyday. They all agreed; only thing now is to figure out how to support her, hell even myself for that matter. My teammates mentioned I should talk to the coaches and see what they had to say; so I did. I was then faced with the biggest decision of my life; either let her go and continue on with my dreams of playing volleyball professionally one day or doing what I had to do in order to make sure that my little sister was taken care of.
I spoke to my mothers landlord about everything and he was concerned with how i would do all of this being as I was young myself. He helped me get a lawyer and talk to child services. I was granted custody of my little sister until my mother was released from jail. I got a full time job and was trying to juggle school, homework, practices, work and being there at night for my little sister. I became overly stressed and my coaches all saw it in my performance. I went from the only one in my high school who could jump serve to not even being able to serve the ball. They recorded our practices and made it a point to show all of us how we were doing with progress in our game. I then realized what I had to do. I thought that my parents didnt want me anymore after they got a divorce. I knew how horrible that feeling was, so I knew it was something I never wanted her to go through. I dropped out of school and started working to support my sister and me. I lost my scholarship, my diploma and moswt importantly I lost the dreams of ever becoming a somebody in my own eyes.
A couple weeks had passed and the landlord brought over a newspaper clipping. It appeared that they had put my mothers story in the paper and made it bold that they were making an example out of her even though she was innocent; because the man they were after was residing in her home. I was furious. I thought the law was suppose to help innocent people not make examples out of them. About two months after the incident; my mother was released. I was happy, but at the same time I was so damn pissed off. I thought they would have kept her much longer. That is the only reason I dropped out of school. I let everything go for something I valued more than anything, family.
This was a life changing event for me. If you would have asked me the morning it all occured where I saw myself in five or ten years; I would have told you that I saw myself on television possibly. I saw myself playing sand volleyball with the professionals. I tell you now that it was stupid for me to drop out and ruin my dreams for my future over something in which I had no control over. Although, at the time, I thought I had all the control in the world over what was happening around me. I believe that everything happens for a reason. I am unclear of the reasoning behind me ruining everything I had going for me, but I hope that one day I will know what I did it for. To this day I still play volleyball, but its only with friends and when I go back to texas, we all get together and play sand volleyball. The only thing I can keep telling myself is that i did it for the love of my family
