Joseph Bakhit

October 8, 2010

English 10 - Period 4

Autobiograph Narrative

Final Draft

KEEP GOING

Little did I know that one choice, one decision, or one sacrifice would change my life forever. My two brothers, Matthew and Terrick, stuck with me throughout the toughest parts of life, including the time when we ran away from our grandmother’s house. Her house consists of one bedroom, so she slept in the living room. My two brothers, my grandmother, and I all lived in a one bedroom upstairs apartment. At this time I was eleven, Terrick was twelve, and Matthew was fourteen. My brothers and I made many consecutive and strategic decisions to go through with the whole process. My grandmother, though I love her now, put us through many ordeals and conflicts. My grandmother would mentally and physically abuse my brothers and me to the point of devastation. For example, one night when my brother returned home from wrestling practice and he was still sweating. I eavesdropped and overheard my grandmother saying she found thirteen types of clothing stashed in the bushes. He explained he hid them there so later when he goes to school, he can change out of the embarrassing clothes he was forced to wear. She was infuriated, got the leather belt, and took his shirt off. She then hit him on the back one time for every piece of clothing she found. It was horrifying.  

My grandmother was a rather big lady and the rest of us kids were small, except for Matthew who was pretty cut for his age. One Sunday morning, my grandmother woke my brothers and me up to do our weekly routine. I remember waking up about two minutes earlier, so when my grandmother walked in I was ready to just jump up and begin my “wonderful” day. I woke up and still had that groggy feeling of being super drowsy. I stumbled over to the table, managed to sit down and eat breakfast. After about twenty minutes of eating I was done so, I went back to my room where my brothers were. My oldest brother said “Today is the day.” I knew exactly what he meant when he said that. Though I was a bit nervous I knew it had to be done. What he meant was today we were going to run away from our grandmother’s house. We went to our closet to get our clothes that were already picked out, but then I started thinking.

Even though this deed had to be done it was just a crazy thought. After 7 years of getting whooped and having no social life would I be able to just run away. When I was beat she would use anything in site. For example she once threw her sandal at me, missed, got even more upset, and made me give it back to her. It was actually quite amusing. As a little kid when my grandmother would hit me she would tell me that she didn’t care if we called the cops. She said if we went to a foster home it would be horrible, I would be raped and spit at, and I would imagine being curled in a corner, in a dim lit room, and a tall and bearded guy would spit on me and hit me more. Because of this I never felt the need to go to a foster home to just get treated worse from a guy that was not even part of my family. So, I’d rather just take a beating a couple times a day than to do that somewhere else and maybe even be apart from my brothers. Today I can still remember the faces of my brothers when they were crying, and that hurt feeling I had deep in my gut. I always wanted to say something, or yell at her but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the guts to and this is why we needed to run away.

Though we knew what we were going to wear “to church” we decided we might need some extra clothes so later on we could change if necessary. So we did a couple things to make this happen. First, we wore about 3 pairs of shorts under our jeans, many socks, and many shirts. We even grabbed a DVD that we really like, (which seems pretty funny since I was a little kid). Before we left to church we all had to do our chores, and mine was pretty easy. Though Terrick’s chore was to do trash, it was easy and we thought we can use this to our advantage. So, all of us grabbed another outfit or so and threw it all in a bag, and then put it in the big trash bag so our grandmother wouldn’t see it. Then when my brother took out the trash he stuffed our clothes behind the dumpster. While we were doing our chores, for some unknown reason, Matthew had gotten in trouble and was now getting whooped. My grandmother tried to neglect him for the rest of the time we were there by not talking to him or saying goodbye when our bus came. By this point he really wanted to run away.

The bus honked like every other Sunday when they were here to pick us up. So, Terrick and I said our goodbyes, but she was still ignoring Matt so he just followed us out. This Sunday, instead of going straight to the bus, my brothers and I went around the back to the parking lot. We tipped toed to the back, grabbed our clothes and then peeked around the wall to the street where our bus was waiting for us. Then Matt, being older, went to the bus, walked in, and told the bus driver that we couldn’t go because we had family business to attend to. The bus driver was a very nice guy and understood and then left. When it was finally out of sight, we were able to come out and we walked to the nearest telephone booth which wasn’t too far. As we were walking and we were in front of our apartments we all looked at each other and started singing. We sang the song “Runaway Love” by Ludacris and Mary J. Blige. In the inside it was probably the happiest I've been in my life. I loved my brothers and even though I was nervous I sang and laughed. When we reached the phone we had just enough money to use it and we decided to call our sister. We called her, and at the time she lived in Logan Heights, CA. She agreed to come and meet us at a Burger King that was a couple blocks away. We sat there happier than ever, and that’s when I knew my life was about to change. There we were, loitering at a Burger King. Scared, angry, and empty inside. For years she had tried to steal our joy. With every lash of the ironing chord and heal of a shoe, she slowly broke us down, and we’d had enough. We’d made up our minds and we weren’t turning back. I sat on the curb reminiscing on the moment it just happened, the moments as brothers we decided to run away. And on that curb we created the “saying” M.T.J. for life.

M.T.J. stands for my brother and my initials. We invented this phrase in regards to our brotherhood and our love for one another. At first I was scared, but afterward I was happy.  Then I realized people go through many conflicts, but at the end it’s all worth it. This main obstacle was just one of many that we encountered together. And now I thank God to be where I am at today because without events like this I might have been a completely different person. My family hung in with me, and they are continuously doing so, for that I love them. I am glad I went through with running away because little did I know one choice, one decision, or one sacrifice would change my life forever.