The Diamond's Expense

Chase Russell
Mrs. Bennett
Health/ Period 2
Narrative Final
3/28/16

Freedom of Choice
To try to remember at what point or period of time things started going wrong in my life. But my family life, or to say my parents’ lifestyle, had a big influence on the decisions I made in life. Not that I’m blaming my parents or anybody else for my decisions and actions in life, but the influence was there nonetheless.
One of my first childhood experiences came when I was about six years old. I was an only child then, but I remember my parents and I had eaten out. At that time we had this dog of female Doberman Pincher we had named Daisy. Upon returning home from the restaurant we discovered the dog had chewed up a number of things around the house. I can’t remember what exactly happened next, but I clearly recall my father ran into the kitchen and came out with a knife, grabbing the dog by her head and cutting its throat. He did this right in front of me. That image has lived with me all my life.
I started shoplifting at the age of seven, and things just continued to go downhill from there. We moved around a lot during those days; until my mother had my brother. Shortly after he was born we moved into a nice day house with four bedrooms, a dining room, and two bathrooms; we never had a basement or a big yard. Both my parents were working then.
Due to all the moving around, I was not doing well in school at all. I was eight years old going on nine and was still in the second grade. I remember my teacher telling my mother that she was going to pass me to the third grade, but that I would probably struggle and get left back. So my mother told my teacher to leave me in the second grade. When I was told about this, I cried all night. I hated my mother for doing that to me; well I really did not hate her, but I was really mad. Things just got worse after that; actually, I got worse after that. I hated school now. Altogether I was “left back” in school in the second,...