Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Stones of Summer: Instinct ❯ Summer/16 ( Epilogue )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Epilogue Two
Summer/16

“I'm going to tell you a story. It has a bit of humor, some love and tragedy, but mostly, it is about a girl who struggles to find her way home and her place in life. She must face her mistakes and live with all the consequences, but do not doubt, she has the courage to face another day.”
Jancy Ferdricks (1968-1996)

Every summer, my parents trekked southwest to meet up with a group of other conservationists and government officials to determine the progress of the year. It is a long tedious couple of months spent in conference rooms and shabby hotels. The heat followed us as we move further south, yet they do this every year. And every year, they drag my unwilling body right along with them.
My name is Grace Ferdricks, I live with my brother Waylen, my dad Chris and my step-mom Ann. We live next to a tiger sanctuary that my parents built to keep the tigers in and other unwanted pests out. I love every second of my life, except for the trip south. Sound familiar? I'm told I get more like my mom everyday, and I think so too. I've read her story, I found the crumpled handwritten papers neatly stacked in a shoe box in the back of my parent's closet. They don't know I have it. So this summer, instead of traveling south, I'm staying right where I am, well, maybe a bit west of here, with my grandparents. I'm going to spend my summer working, typing, revising. I'm going to get my mother's story out. I think the world needs to hear what she had to say, that happened to her and how she overcame it. The world needs to know who she was, not just a face on a newspaper clipping but a real live person. She had fears, and she cried, and she got angry, and she found true love. But most importantly, she survived. Despite the fact that within her, she was a time-bomb, waiting to go off. I can't say I completely understand everything she went through, though some day I hope to, but I can do whatever it takes for others to see the lessons she sought to teach my brother and I.

I doubt we will have be in such a situation as hers, those rarely happen, but she had to learn so much to survive, in doing so, her story can show us what was necessary. We can tell ourselves assuredly if we would ever be able to do those things she did. I can't say I ever could.
What we also have to accept is that we may think we can not do these things, but we may never know until the heat has been turned up. The situation of the time can determine a lot of a person. There will be times when we are so terrified of the event at hand that we may crumble and rely on others to aid us. There will be times when we are the ones called upon for the aid. We'll never know until we have the experience, and we'll will only learn that experience first hand.
So don't go thinking you can kill random animals, skin them and eat them, or that you can go up to a tiger and press your face against its fur. I'm not even that stupid. Just know that when you need the courage, look within yourself. This is getting very preachy, so I'll wrap it up. Basically, trust your gut, and don't try to lie to yourself. It backfires. And then you get a whole lot of ugly on your plate.