Sweet Shoppe Designs

For Sweet Shoppe Designs Sugar Free Challenge #50 Leaving Home

journaling: When I was 14, I left home to attend a boarding school an hour and a half away instead of staying at home to go to the local high school. When I
think back on this time, I don’t think about what it was like to adjust to living away from my home and how I had to adapt to new people and a new environment. I find that I think mostly about my father who was dying at the time. I cannot remember if I knew he was ill when I left or if my parents told me later. I did not see him getting weaker and sicker as the cancer progressed. Even though the school was fairly close I don’t remember going home very often. I do remember being home at Christmas break and talking to my father while he lay in bed. We had never been close and growing up I feared his temper and criticism. But dying had changed him, he seemed to be filled with remorse and regret for the way he had treated his family. My younger sister was still at home and perhaps she got to know him better and experience his changed personality. I still have the memory of a harsh man with an angry, volatile temper. I also wonder how watching my father slowly dying affected my sister and mother. Because I was not at home, I didn’t see what they and my father were going through. And as typical of my family, we never talked about our feelings. Sometimes I wonder, what if I had stayed home? Would my father and I have gotten closer? Would my memories of my father be different? Would I feel more at peace with my memories of him?
journaled: August 2008, photo July 2003

kit: Still One of the Gang by Lauren Grier, Shawna Clingerman, and Micheline Martin @ Sweet Shoppe Designs

plus
- Miss Betty alpha by Fee Jardine @ Sweet Shoppe Designs
- journaling font: DJB TracyL from Basics by Darcy Baldwin @ Sweet Shoppe Designs
- Tattered Photo Overlay by Lynne-Marie Favreau @ CatScrap
- Something Blue Studios Worn Photo Overlays Set 2 @ CatScrap
- Loose Stitching by Syrin @ CatScrap
- paper tear by Stephanie Krush at DigitalPaperTearing.com
- Atomic Cupcake Light Crumple action