The Reaves
Family means a lot to me. We’re all so very close, and also because I don’t care to have a lot of friends mainly because of all of the unnecessary drama and the desire of attention they feel they need. I’m the type of person who couldn’t care less about what others think about me or how they feel about me. I don’t know why, but I’ve never been an emotional person. I’m the type to just say “okay” and just move on, but that’s just me. Now, on the other hand, my siblings are the opposite. I wouldn’t say the total opposite, but they’re different than me. I come from a blended family. My biological dad left my mother when I was about six months old and my older brother was two.
When I was younger I always wanted an older sister because it had always just been me and my one older brother. His name is Michael. Being the youngest I just knew it’d be impossible for me to ever have a big sister biologically. As a child, I didn’t know the definition of the word biological. All I knew was that I didn’t have a big sister, so I never would. A few years down the line my mom started dating. I’m sure she had been dating long before I was aware, but suddenly this guy was around all the time. I didn’t know who this man was or where he came from; all I knew was that he was always around my mom and I didn’t like it.
Then one day, my brother and I came home from school and my mom was outside waiting on us as usual, but this day was different. My mom told us she had some people she wanted us to meet. So we go inside and the same guy was there but we had already met him. His name was Lamont, so we were confused because we had already met this man. Lamont goes outside and returns about twenty minutes later. He comes back with three people, two boys, and one girl. Come to find out these were his kids he introduced us to.
The oldest boy’s name was Lamont Jr. and I thought that was pretty funny they had the same name. The next oldest was this girl named Cierra and the last little boy’s name was Brandon.
I was so happy because this meant finally had some new people to play with other than Micahel who most of the time didn’t want to play with me or my dolls. I noticed the two new boys but it was the girl who caught my eye. Finally, someone who had some things in common with me. So immediately we all went off to play. Now I wouldn’t say I didn’t like Lamont. It wasn’t that he has ever done anything wrong to me it was just that I am overprotective over the people I care about, especially my mom. I just didn’t like the fact that he was around her.
Michael and I were both similar as we’ve got a lot in common. Lamont Jr was the oldest and yet also the weirdest. Lamont Jr was always an outcast to the rest of us. He was like the nerd of us all but we all still loved him. Next was Cierra, she was and still is the bully of us all. I guess you could say me and her are just mean because we’re constantly surrounded by boys. Cierra liked to fight and just overall bully us. She was only mean to us though everyone else just thought she was a shy and quiet person but little did they know. Then there was Brandon, now Brandon liked football as we all played multiple sports, he was a football star. So of course just as any sport the coach teaches everyone to play as a team and everyone eventually comes to love one another as if everyone was family.
Brandon had played football for years so of course, he had made himself some friends or as he would say “his brothers”, but there was this one guy that stood out the most to Brandon I guess and he was just always at the house like he was there every weekend, almost every day after school like just constantly. His name was Tyrek everyone just called him Ty though, we didn’t mind though our house was always like the “party” house like all the kids in the neighborhood would always come over to hang out with everyone all the time everybody just called Lamont “Pops” and my mom “Mama”. Ty was the type of person to always make someone feel good, no matter the situation. He always had a joke to tell to keep everyone laughing, but he was also a huge instigator just because like two random guys could be arguing and here Ty would come saying “I bet y’all won’t fight about it though..” or “I bet you won’t, etc”.
Nobody ever took his jokes personal, because everyone knew that’s just how he was. Now, Ty, had some personal issues going on back at home with his dad so he never really wanted to go home, to avoid unnecessary arguments. Like I said before though, no one minded so Ty just became apart of our family as he moved in first he’d just pack a bag for the weekend then go home get a little more stuff next thing you know he had moved in. We eventually ended up moving houses and Ty had a room just like the rest of us. He had become one of us. Tyrek had lived with us for about ten years going on counting so most of the people we all met or knew already would’ve had never even known he wasn’t our blood brother same for the rest of us that’s just how close we all were, you see one you’d see all of us not too far behind.
Pops is a retired Sergeant in the Army, everyone followed his footsteps by joining the Army as well. Except for Lamont Jr. he had gone to school to become a social worker which he enjoys. Everyone was stationed on different bases but Tyrek was the only one having problems with his roommate and just overall where he was stationed so he had been trying to get moved for about six or seven months but something always came up so he was stuck. Like I mentioned before Cierra liked to fight and stuff she wasn’t a bad person she’s just short-tempered. So usually if something was wrong with her or if something had happened she’d just go sit outside to be able to control her anger by separating herself from everyone else.
This particular day I was off from work, I’d been out all day hanging out with some friends. I was headed back to my house around ten, eleven O’Clock this night. As I was pulling into the driveway I noticed Cierra sitting outside so my first thought was her and pops had got into an argument or something nothing unusual you know everyone argues with their parents at times, but this time was different because she was crying. So I confront her to see what was wrong and she just hugged me and started balling her eyes out and a few seconds later says “Tyrek’s dead man”. I stopped, took a deep breath, asked what happened, and she said, “He shot himself in the face.” The first thing I thought was okay maybe he was cleaning his weapon or something and it accidentally fired. They said he had been rushed to the hospital.
Tyrek was stationed in Kentucky so we couldn’t do anything but stay on the phone with the hospital and try to figure out what was going on and hope that everything would be okay. The doctors were trying to say it was a suicide attempt because of the gunshot wound located in his mouth. I automatically knew that wasn’t true because I know my brother and had just talked to him about two days prior we’d had a whole bunch of plans because he was returning home the following week for my graduation and my birthday that would soon follow. He was so excited to come home, he had taken leave for about four to five weeks. So why two days later after we had just talked would he turn around and kill himself? It didn’t make sense. Nobody that knew about the situation believed that story either.
They started an investigation and of course at first “no one knew anything,” but his roommate was in the room when it all went down, so my question just like everyone else’s: “Where were you when it all happened?” First, his roommate said he wasn’t in the room at all. Then, he said he was in the room, that Ty had been talking about suicide, and that he had turned away from Ty. So by the time he turned back around, Ty had already shot himself. Now, if this were true, why would anybody turn away from a suicidal person, especially if they had a weapon in their hands? Well then, we all find out there was a third person in the room which was the roommate’s best friend. He eventually came to the police because of his conscience and admitted he was there. Now, we didn’t know who or what to believe. All the third person kept saying was that he was in the room and that Tyrek and the roommate had gotten into an argument.
Throughout the investigation, they discovered that it was indeed a homicide because the gun my brother owned didn’t match the type of gun he had been shot with, and also the clip to his gun was on the opposite side of the room with no bullets in the clip or chamber. Nobody can kill themselves, then come back to life and move the clip and other evidence to the other side of the room. Nothing was making sense to anyone. All I knew was my brother had been unnecessarily taken from me and I still want to know why as the investigation is still going on. It’s been a couple of months, and of course, I miss him dearly but I still have our memories to keep me sane. I have my moments at times, of course, but this is just life I guess.
Reflection
A risk I took while writing this paper was putting my emotions to the side to be able to talk about my brother as this situation was recent, although I knew this would be a hard topic to write about I didn’t have many choices to pick from. I haven’t been through that much in my life so far that I can recall. I also struggled with letting others read this paper because it’s very personal and I’m a private person I just didn’t want others to look at me any different than they already do. While writing the paper I had a hard time with my grammar and punctuation so I had to keep going back to correct it, but I had a lot of resources to choose from so I got help from the writing tutor while in study hall to be able to see my mistakes from a different point of view. I lost focus a few times while creating this essay but I kept refocusing myself over and over again because I knew it was important for me to complete it and also I felt like being able to write about could help me heal from the situation in away. Sometimes writing can make me feel better but this time I don’t know if it helped. I feel a little better but obviously, I’m still not over it, although it was hard for me to accept the fact that others would be reading it because I feel like everyone would judge me and look at me differently afterward. The point is I focused and pushed through and I’m proud of myself for that. One thing I didn’t want from my readers was for them to start feeling sorry for me or give me pity. The situation is bad enough already as is, so it’ll just make me even madder when someone just keeps asking if I’m okay. It won’t change anything so what’s the point, and it definitely won’t bring him back to life. Especially when someone keeps asking if your okay after something big happens, like no I’m not but I will be if you leave me alone. I’m the type of person that wants to be left alone when something happens to me because I’m a private person so why would I just open up and start talking to random people about my feelings? Some of the ways my family help throughout this situation as we all stuck by one another’s side and just appreciating one another a little bit more than we used too. We’ve all definitely had all gotten closer since this has happened because you just never know what can happen in life. It was hard on all of us of course but just coming together makes it a little easier to deal with.
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