Life Has to Go on

            The family was good and everyone was happy. Everything was alright. But then everything became different.

            Everything was different when a strong tornado took our things, our rooms, our house… It took away my sister. From that day on, the family did not didn’t get along with each other, and it was not happy anymore. No one talked. No one played. We all slept in one small room because we lost our rooms. We hated that!

            It was a sunny day. Everyone was bored. No one was talking just like every other day. So I started thinking, “This is not good. Our family should stay together whatever happens. My sister died. That does not mean that we should not be together. Everyone is going to die one day.”

This idea stayed on my mind all day. When the night came, I was still thinking about it. My mom slept beside my baby brother on a couch. My other brother slept on another couch. Dad slept on the floor, and my small sister and I slept on a small, thin mattress.

The next morning was boring too… Dad tried to add some excitement to our day, “Let’s play baseball,” or, “We can be two teams and play soccer.” But no one was interested. We couldn’t stop thinking of Aleen.

Mom also tried to make us happy in her own way, but nothing worked with us. I thought it was time I say my ideas, so I told everyone that I wanted to talk to them. They gathered and I said my speech, “Families should stay together whatever happens. Losing Aleen does not mean losing the whole family… We are one family! Each one of us is going to die one day and Aleen’s day had come.”

“But she was a great sister,” Ali cried.

“I know!” She was the greatest. If Ali suffered a lot, I suffered more. She was my twin sister, “We’re all going to die and we have to keep going. We lost everything else. That’s right. We lost our rooms and our things. But we can build new rooms and on top of that we can have new things and more and more. We all have to work and start building a new house… and start our life again!”

Everyone listened carefully. And when I was done talking, they all said, “Yes, yes, right!”

“You’re a genius!” Reem called out. It’s a new word she had learned and is trying to use it whenever she can.

“You’re a great girl, Leen!” mom said to me, and everyone agreed.

 Dad and mom went back to work, and we went back to school. Ali had a job at a supermarket after school. I stayed with Yaman and Reem whenever mom and dad had extra work.  Mom had a new baby girl. We built a nice, new house. It was big , and our life was great again!

But we will never forget our lovely Aleen!