Sarah Brookins

Two Worlds Collide Sarah Brookins

"Maturity is when your world opens up and you realize that you are not the center of it."Would you believe it if someone told you that they'd never left their own front yard? Not many people would, but in my case it's true. My name is Melanie Alvarado and my father is agoraphobic. He's afraid to leave the house at all. So, for the past eighteen years, he's lived at home. He used to have a wife, but she left when I was just a baby. It's just been me, dad, and a personal nurse since then. But three months ago, things changed. My father caught a cold. At first, we thought it was nothing. Then he got worse. He didn't make it through the weekend. I spent the next week alone in my bedroom while our nurse made all the funeral arrangements. Then, on a chilly Sunday afternoon, I left my lawn for the first time, for the funeral. The funny thing is, I felt a little good about my father's passing. In a way, it was like this was better; he'd rarely been happy in his life -- maybe he could be happy in death. I like to hope so. After the funeral came the even harder part -- deciding what to do with myself.