The blood of POPS the Club runs with emotional healing that can emerge unexpectedly.
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“You don’t want it to be anonymous?” I asked.She shook her head no. She said writing it had helped her feel a little better. Time came to read it, and her best friend Maryana said,
“I’ll read it for her,”and Maryana read it aloud, and the group burst into applause, and Kat was surrounded by people hugging and offering support. This is the definition of POPS! — Amy Friedman
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His Blood Runs Through Me
by Kat Secaida
Today in a courthouse somewhere in Los Angeles, my father is facing a judge, and I am in my English class worrying about him.
I wonder why I have to have such a screwed up father. I mean, I hear my friends talk about their dads who take them places; who are there for their birthdays. Most nights I cry myself to sleep fearing one day my father will die from his addiction. He’s an alcoholic.
I know my dad loves me, and I love him deeply, but I can’t deal with this anymore.
I wake every morning or in the middle of the night thinking, “What’s the next call my mother’s going to receive? How’s she going to break the news to my sister and me this time?”
I’ve heard my dad talk about how much pain he’s in and I tell him to go to the doctor and he says, “No!”
He acts like everything is fine. He acts like he never ruins anything.
Every time he calls, I think, “What if he’s drunk? Should I pick up?” Half the time I don’t. And I wonder if that hurts him. But then I think, “F__ it, it hurts me too!”
He has one life and he’s destroying it. He has a family who cares about him, but he keeps chasing his addiction.
I wake every morning or in the middle of the night thinking, “How does he live his life like this? What goes through his mind?”
I know one day he will die and I won’t be ready for that. Just as I wasn’t ready to hear that he was sent to jail for the second time.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have a father.
I know if he goes to jail, he’ll get help. But I know how it is inside. Like my father, I’ve been arrested.
But today as he faces the judge, I feel he’s not my problem. But at the same time, I know he is.
Because he’s my father.
His blood runs through me.
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Please check out the other POPS Updates:
California Students Transform Through Art With POPS
Teaching Kids to Open the Tap on Creativity
If You Wrote Someone Who is Incarcerated
There aren’t Fathers Where I am From
“They Stereotype the Students”
Listening and the Difference Caring Makes