Good news guys, Dylan is fine now. He got back on his feet, fortunately, and will be leaving to go to college that's several hours away in a few weeks on August 9, 2018.

Whenever I think about that, I always have mixed emotions. I feel sad, but I should be happy. He's like my Big Brother, and he's leaving a difficult life behind to start a new one, changing daily unneeded stress into a life of music like he's wished for. He's going to do marching band in college, and become a music instructor. I'm proud of how far he's come around, even with everything that's been holding him back. I want him to leave, just like I've told him to for two years, but I'll miss him. Even so, I can't hold him back.
I'm sure many of you understand this feeling.

Continuing more on my father's death.

In Entry #2, I said that the reason for his death hurt me more than the fact that he died. Some of you would think there's no point in how he died, since he's still dead no matter the reason. I know that, but there's always a point when people die.

I believe that a huge part of someone's life is how they die, because it could say a lot about them. Take Daddy for instance. I found out a few months after he died that he died from....... You guessed it: Drinking and driving. It was on a rainy night, and he was very intoxicated from alcohol. How do I know? The doctor who gave his body an autopsy said so, and the police notified my Grammy Val of that. Let me tell you why I was allowed to know this information.

I was sad, but hid it away with a smile and tried moving on from his death, even immediately after finding out his death. I couldn't let myself seem like a depressed kid when I needed to be strong for the ones who weren't as strong-willed in my family, like my younger sister. I was 12 years old at the same, while she was seven. If I kept crying, then how could I expect her to accept losing him?

I was called heartless for not opening up whenever someone wanted to talk about him, basically saying everything about me was like how my father was. How can someone move on from something, if people keep bringing it up? I thought it was common sense, but oh well. I still feel this way now, four years later.

I got upset when people told me that he's in a better place now, since God took him away. I started thinking: Why did God take my Daddy away from me? What did my sister and I do to deserve losing him?

Soon, I started to really dislike God, or Jesus, or whatever other religious saying people told me. I've never had the best relationship with God in the first place, because things to me were never perfect. I've always wondered why God didn't help me in times of need, or why my family had to suffer the way they did, but when I lost my dad, I lost all respect for "our Heavenly Father" or Lord savior. He saved people before, or so religious people claim, but he didn't save me, and he surely didn't save my father.

They said that He controlled the weather, so if that's true, then why did He make it rain so hard on the area that Daddy was driving in? Why did He not control how much damage the car received, so my dad wouldn't die? You get the point.

I told my mom all of this after she kept nagging at me to tell her how I was handling Daddy's death. She said, "LaCole, I don't want you blaming God for this, so you need to know..."

She told me how my father was drunk and lost control of the car. I was hurt, more than when founding out that he was dead, because he broke his promise. If he would've listened to me and kept his promise that he wouldn't drink and drive, then he'd still be alive.

Even now, I still hold a grudge against him for that, because he died at thirty years old to fit in with others, to be called 'cool' for smoking weed and consuming alcohol. Let this be a lesson to you guys. If being cool means doing something dangerous that could get you in trouble, then fitting in isn't worth ending up dead.

You guys may think I don't understand how it's like to be you, some of y'all are outcasts, some are labeled as monsters, some are bullied, etc. I've been all of those too. Even if my situation isn't the same, I still suffered. My father's death hasn't been my greatest pain, but it has been one of the worse, since it'll affect me for the rest of my life.

Some of you might say: At least you knew your father. I've never known mine.

Touché, but at least you've never known the pain of losing him if you've never had him in the first place or don't have memories of him.

Even though our pain isn't the same, we both suffered.

Maybe if people started thinking about the fact that they're not the only one suffering than focusing on what they're suffering from, then it'd be easier for them to deal with their pain and possibly find happiness amongst their darkness.

I've learned that, took several years, but I understand that now. Sixteen years old, about to be seventeen in September, and I'm trying to talk to y'all about coping with your pain as if I'm Master Shifu? Yeah, because I went through more shit than the average person would in their adult years.

I can't change all that happened to me. Luckily, I'm still a virgin, but hopefully, I can help some of you get through your pain.

For the longest time, I had no one to talk to. The people I tried talking to only thought I wanted attention, made fun of me, or used that information to bully me and spread rumors. At least you guys have a safe place to talk here, so....

Can you relate?

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