Family problems Trærup

Family problems

Sometimes, the only way to solve a problem is to do something about it, instead of trying to ignore it. I just learned that too late.

I was on my way home after a day in school. Honestly, I should rather say another day of playing hooky. Anyway, when I got home, my father was sleeping as usual in the couch with a beer in his hand. I walked out in the kitchen to make some food, when I heard a deep sleepy noise. “Steiner”, that’s my name, yelled my father. I walked into the living room and saw my father standing up. “Have you been playing hooky again?” he asked. “No, our teacher was sick, so we got off the last lesson”. I tried to make an excuse, but I knew my father wouldn’t believe me. “Don’t lie to me,” he shouted. The next second his hand was flying through the air. A sudden pain came from my cheek, and I knew he had beaten me. I didn’t do anything, because I knew that it was the best way to avoid another beat. My father mumbled a little bit, and then he felt down in the couch with a bump. It wasn’t unusual, that my father beat me if I had been playing hooky, but the worst thing was that my mother didn’t do anything if she was there, when my father was beating me. I turned away and walked back to the kitchen to finish making my food. After I had eaten the food, I went up to my room and got out a little green box from under my bed. I had stored my glue tubes there, so my parents wouldn’t discover them. As you probably could have guessed by now, I was addicted to drugs, in my case glue, because it was the cheapest. I putted the tube up in my left nostril and took a huge draw. This was something I always did to push the pain away, when I felt terrible.

The next day went just as all other days. I got up at 8.00 am, and went to school about 9.00 am. I always came too late in school and missed the first lesson. In the lunch break at 11.40 am I was just walking around as usual, because I had nothing better to do. Actually, I only walked around in the cafeteria area, because it was the easiest area to steal because nearly everyone here walked around with coins in there pocket. Whenever the opportunity was there, I grabbed it, and tried to pickpocket money, or even better; a wallet! It might sound weird, but trust me, I did it only because that I needed clean cash to buy my glue. As I told you earlier, I was addicted to glue so I needed dough for getting it, and the only way I could get that was to steal them. My family had a bad economy because my father drank all the money away so I wouldn’t get a single penny from them. Anyway, after the lunch break I had stolen about 30 pounds so that wasn’t a bad day. The bell sounded and the lesson started. A quarter to two we got off. I packed my things and walked home. Soon, my life was about to chance forever… When I got home, I opened the door and stepped in. Crying noises came from the living room and I slowly walked towards it. My mother was standing over my father crying. I asked her what had happened and she answered me with a thick voice. “He… he is dead”. That was the first time I actually felt sorry for my father. He, who had always been beating me and shouting at me, was now gone. My feelings were mixed. I didn’t knew if I should be pleased or sad.

 A month later, my mother and I had sold the house, and moved to a small apartment. I started on a new school, stopped stealing and started to get some help to stop sniffing glue too. From that day, my life changed from bad to a normal life with friends and all that. I started to make my homework, and I actually started to interest me for the school. I learned that problems didn’t solve themselves, and you just can’t pretend they aren’t there, and try to live with them. You must always try to solve them, if you wanted them solved, like with my father. Now it was just too late.

Written by

Rasmus Trærup