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Melancholy by Allen Thai
Have you ever lost someone that you helped to raise all of your life? Well, in the story, Redemption, Betty, mother of Jack, David, and Phoebe, and wife of Dale Hawthorne, loses one of her very own children. This happens because Jack accidentally ran over his younger, David, with a tractor. He didn't mean to do it, David just fell off accidentally and there was absolutely nothing that Jack could have done. He couldn't decide on what to do after David had fallen off and the tractor was already on top of him. He could've done one of two things. One of which was to stop and go in reverse, which would completely kill him, because it's just like having something with the weight of more than one elephant run over him, stop, and then keep on going again. The second choice that he had was to keep on going so that he could on to check on his little brother. Doing so will kill David also, so there was nothing that could've stopped his death. You would feel melancholy or grieve for a person like this. I know I would.
This tragic event will haunt a family for a lifetime. I feel really sorry for Betty. She didn't do anything to deserve this. She spent more than seven years of her life raising little David, and now it's like someone grabbed him and took him away from her forever. Most parents wouldn't have reacted in the way that Dale and Betty reacted after such a tragedy. Some parents cannot cope with the loss of one of their own children, and they just abandon their family. Their father might go one way, as Dale Hawthorne did in Redemption, and the mother might go the other way. Doing so leaves the children all alone and makes them feel like orphans. Unlike Dale, Betty didn't react like most parents would have. "A cheerful woman--one who laughed often...--she cried now." She did what her strength allowed her to do. She was able to comfort her children, which was good enough. Dale, on the other hand, vacated the farm and left his family for an extended period of time. He was a faithful man before the accident, but now, he just leaves the farm and finds other women because he does not know how to cope with this tragedy. He just walks away whenever he feels like it and leaves all of the farm work to Jack. He shouldn't desert his family like this. He should stay home and try to make what once was a family become a family again. This way, everyone can express their emotional feelings over the death of David with each other and maybe help each other get over this.
Jack felt really bad for what happened to David. He had a big influence on his little sister, Phoebe, because he made it seem like he didn't believe in God anymore "Jack, did you want to say grace? Not really he said". Saying so will probably make Phoebe not believe in God anymore. Jack also took French horn lessons to get over David's death.
Staying calm through a time like this is hard. Betty stays relaxed and calm and tried to take things easily. She is a good mother for doing this because she wants to make sure the rest of her children are taking this calmly also. If Mom wasn't there for them, how would they deal with this? Their dad can't cope with this kind of stress and left the farm occasionally, so if their mom did not help them with this, the two kids would be in a world of loneliness.
Raising a child is hard work. It takes time and effort to do this, and Betty was devoted into taking the time and effort to raise three kids. She is proud of herself for raising that many kids, and now she is so hurt, obviously, with the loss of David, and she would probably feel the same way if it was any of her other kids.
So in conclusion, I felt really sorry for Betty because she spent too much time to raise David and then to lose him in a matter of seconds. Now if David wouldn't have ever gotten killed, things would be dramatically different from what it is now. Dale wouldn't have been unfaithful to Betty, Jack wouldn't feel bad and take French horn lessons, Betty would still be her same old happy self, and Phoebe would be just fine. But since it did happen, things stay the way they are right now, and the sad life of the Hawthorne family will continue.
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