For the betterment of Sarah Williams - Chapter One

Sarah had to move back in with her parents. Without her husband’s income, she couldn’t afford the nice house they used to live in anymore. In fact she couldn’t afford anything anymore. She looked for employment but the only thing she was qualified for was flipping burgers for 8 dollars an hour and that wasn’t going to take care of herself and her two children. She spent hours trying to qualify for assistance from the government with no luck. So she had to move back in with her parents. It was like taking a huge step back.

Her husband had been missing for over 6 months. The police found no trace of him anywhere. She wasn’t convinced that they were looking very hard. She knew he was going to show up one day but with each passing day, her hope started to fade. There was no evidence to give detectives a lead to where he might be. As far as they were concerned, he just disappeared off the face of the Earth. There was no trace of him anywhere. They did find his car, parked in his usual spot at work. There was no sign of struggle or anything to suggest anything unusual had happened there. He was just gone.

Sarah never gave herself any time to mourn. She had to be strong for the children. The children had a hard time at first with their father’s disappearance. They had behaviors and been to see councilors to help them get over it. They went through the five stages of grief. At first they didn’t believe their father would abandon them like that. As the prospect of their fathers return began to fade, they became angry. It wasn’t fair that their lives had to change like this. Now everybody else had a father but them. Soon they started to believe that if they acted better, their father would return. So they became the perfect children. The behaviors stopped and Sarah got a break from the constant emotional drain that the children had on her. When the children realized that their father wasn’t coming back no matter how they acted, they gave up. They stopped living all together. The hope that they had to ever see their father again disappeared and finally they were able to accept the fact that he was gone forever.

Sarah on the other hand, had not gone through any of the stages mentioned above. She was desperately holding on the hope that she would see him again. Since the moment they met, he was her whole world. She had fallen for him hard and she had never recovered. It was fortunate for her that he returned her feelings and when they married, it was the happiest day of her life. Since then they had gone through everything together and the result of their love had produced two children. She thought that she would live an amazing life with the person she was meant to be with. Now that was all gone. She would have to do something else with the time she had left. The thing is she had no idea what she should do.

Sarah’s mother was naturally concerned about her. She knew that Sarah was not coping well and needed some guidance. She contacted a grief support group and got information about upcoming meetings. She had to convince Sarah to go. Sarah had to come to terms with her loss and figure out how to live the rest of her life.

When Sarah’s mother approached her on the subject, Sarah objected. She didn’t want to face the pain that she would need to face to move on but Sarah’s mother would not give up. After days of pressuring Sarah to go, she finally agreed. The reason she agreed was to get her mother off her back. The truth was she needed to go to start rebuilding her life.