My Father… You’ll never understand how someone else feels about someone close to them leaving until you’re actually in their shoes. Not only someone close to you, but someone you loved and still love and care about to this very day. It was always compassion for them until my father left me at the age of five years old. I don’t think anyone really thinks about tragedy until they’re encountered with the dreadful and heart breaking news. My father, Joseph Clarence Reed, will forever be a part of me. Today, I still wish he would just walk through the doors and hug me very tight, his little girl still. There are very little times I dream about him, and it’s as if he were here with me. It’s foolish and childish of me to feel this way, but he was not only my father but my friend. He was always there for me when the times got rough and at the best of times, but it’s no longer that way because he’s gone. No child at all should have to bury their parent at such a young age. It was October 5, 2002 around 7 a.m. when my mother got the call and she came into my room and woke me up crying. I was looking and became terrified, curious to know what happened. Being the age I was, I just looked at her stunned, thinking what is going on. She got me out of bed and hugged me and cried. That exact morning, majority of my family showed up to our house to mourn and talk with my mother. I was wondering why everyone was in such a low-spirited mood; I knew it was something bad, I just didn’t know what it was. Then again, I “didn’t know any better.” My mother put me in the car, and we drove to this area that struck my memory. It was Gordon St, where my father’s girlfriend lived. Before we got out the car, my mother looked at me, I was fastened tightly in my seat belt, and she said, “Baby, your daddy is gone!!!” She began to cry more. I didn’t quite grasp what she was