Chapter 1: Unpredictable Life
Life... is unpredictable.
I learned this when I was just 14 years old. I remember that day clearly. My younger sister and I were playing with my father, a jolly guy who worked as a construction worker to earn a living, after coming back from school when he suddenly got a call from work.
After kissing our forehead, he rushed inside the house, took his truck's keys, kissed my mom, and left the house, telling us he might come a little late but would bring us chocolates.
But...
Instead of him, a call came informing us that he had died in an accident on the site he was working on.
My mom, younger sister, and I were devastated by the news. Though we were not rich, we were happy, but this sudden accident destroyed our happiness.
Without Dad's income, Mom, who hadn't done any job after I was born, had to start working again, but because she came from a not-so-well-off family, she didn't have many qualifications and could only work as a waitress in a nearby restaurant.
With her little income and some money we got from father's insurance, things were fine for the next year, or so we thought.
Though my father's death had affected my sister and me quite a bit, and we weren't as jolly as before, it had affected my mother a lot more.
After a year of bottling up her emotions, she fell ill. I don't remember what exact illness she had because she refused to get proper checkups at a hospital thanks to the exorbitant hospital bills in America, but she always had a high fever, her breathing would be rough, and she became very weak. She was having difficulty even walking properly.
I was worried because covid-19 had spread throughout the world and people were dying. Fortunately, whatever mom had, it wasn't covid, so she survived.