Act of Courage

Kate had to write about an act of courage she performed in her life. Here is Kate's story of her act of courage exactly has she has written it....

One Door Opens Another closes

My act of courage was my dad dying. It might not sound like courage to you,but it was to me. The reason it was courage is because I had to call 911 when I was like eight, it was scary. So you are probably wondering what my story was, well I'll tell it to you, starting now.

It all started out one day, well actually one afternoon (the exact time, well its not really exact, is sometime after school). My dad came to pick me up (my parents were divorced like right after I was born. I know,sad right).Back to what I was saying, sometimes dad would pick me up on friday nights. On friday nights we usually went out to eat at El Phoenix, or somewhere like that.

The next morning he woke me up, we went to the kitchen, we made breakfast, and then we went to watch The Three Stooges. Then we went to the park ,but I don't know. I think we went to the park because I have a baseball bat and I think we found it in the park, so I think that we found it in the park on that day. I'm going to tell you what we usually did at the parks, is that okay? Great. At the parks we would play baseball, play on the monkey bars, and we would also play tag.

Then we went home and he made lunch, I think had made pot roast. That weekend he had gotten me a new video game. The video game was called Animal Crossing (it is really fun). After we had some lunch and went to the living room to play my new video game. I remember where we even sat, he was on the couch and I was on the floor. I had been playing my video game awhile and I got past something really hard. I was very proud of myself and decided that I would tell dad what I did. " Dad, I'm so good at this game! Did you see what level I passed?" I said. There was no response, I figured that he was asleep, so I asked him again. No response. So I looked back on the couch and he was just laying there. Then I went over to the couch, I shook him a little . No response. I started to get a little worried, so I said his name loudly. Still, no response. By now I was really scared. I yelled his name again and told him to stop playing around ( sometimes he did that, pretended to be dead). No response.

By now I was almost hysterical, I mean I was an 8 year old with something really strange happening to her dad, also that little 8 year old didn't know what to do. I started talking to my self in my head. " Okay Kate you can do this. Think, think, THINK! Oh my gosh my dad is dying, what do I do? Call 911 Kate, that will work." I said to myself. I did what I told my self to do, I picked up the phone and dialed 911. Someone had picked up the other line not shortly after I dialed that one important number that could save my fathers life. " Hi, what is you emergency?" Is what he said. His voice was well, wow. Now you are probably thinking, what does she mean his voice is wow? Well I mean his voice was amazing. Sounds weird, right ? I know it probably does, but just let me explain. His vice was strong, sweet, caring, God-like, calming, and well it was just what I needed. As soon as I heard his voice a wave of calmness washed all my worries away, it gave me a sense of I'll get through this I can do it, and it is all okay we will work it out. He was just like his voice very sweet, caring ,and calming. He stayed on the phone with me the whole time. I remember putting the dispatcher on speaker phone. I would run from the living room to the front door, so I could make sure that dad was okay and see if the ambulance was on our street.

I'm going to fast forward. Here is just a brief little story of what happened. So far the ambulance had come and taken my father away to save him, I had called my mother, I called my grandmother, and now I was sitting in the waiting room to tired of crying and didn't know what was going to happen to my dad. Now we are all together. Now please sit back and relax, oh and please enjoy the rest of the story.

I was sitting in an uncomfortable chair, I was mad, sad, scared, I was waiting for my mom to come, sitting not knowing what was going to happen to dad, and honestly that was the worst day ever, no joke. Suddenly my mom walks in the room and then I knew, I knew he was gone, dead , and just like that as quick as you can snap gone. It was hard for me to realize that he had left me and had know plans of returning. In my mind I pictured him gray, lifeless, out of love, looked almost cold to the touch, and it made me want to puke. I left, went home to what seemed like millions of casseroles, millions of gallons of tears, millions of wishes and dreams that this was a dream and i would wake up soon. None of those wishes came true. It has almost been fours sense and yes I have never stop missing him. I will never stop missing him or loving him. One door opens another door closes. That quote is so true. When that door that my father was in closed that door that opened was amazing, but it will never match that door that closed. I have meet Limburge ( that dispatcher with the amazing voice), I got the Girl Scout Metal of Honor, I have gotten to help other people get through there grief, and I will get to be on the radio because I'm going to talk about the story of how I have gotten over the grief of fathers death. Those amazing things have all happened because of that new door that opened.