The rain slowly trickled along the long, narrow windows in the living room of Kara's cabin-like house. Kara had always admired the rain, there was just something about it that soothed her. She watched the pea-sized droplets fall from the clouds and splatter onto the grass, the asphalt roads, and the windows. Her eyes tried to fixate on every droplet, seeing where they would end up and if they would make a more interesting splatter design than the last. She had her elbows standing on the window pane, both of her hands holding her head up to stare out the glass squares.
Kara took a minute to revel in the peace, knowing that it wouldn't last. Her father would be home from work soon, and was not happy with her, at all. She knew it was a bad idea to do what she did, but she had to. It was against her beliefs and values to not do what she did. She then remembered a time where her father had told her that defending her beliefs was key to staying true to herself, and to not be fake. It was a couple years after her mother's death, they had already gotten through the grieving stages, and they were moving on to a happier life like Kara's mother wanted them to. Her father was giving her a piggy-back ride up a hill that had just been engulfed with autumn's vibrant, crunchy leaves. They were laughing at a joke Kara's mother made whenever she would make banana split sundaes for dessert. She would spray whipped cream on her chin and act like it was a beard and stroke it while saying, "Hmmm...I think that this sundae is absolutely bananas!"
Though the joke itself was horrible, they still laughed at it because it had been made by someone that they loved dearly. As they got closer to the top, Kara's father had explained that this hill was where he and her mother had always met up when they were dating in high school. At the time, Kara had loved hearing about love stories, now she grimaces at how unrealistic most of them are. "Everyday, after school, we would meet up here and do homework together. Well, most of the time anyways. Other times we would put it off and climb up into that tree," her father pointed towards a tree at the top of the hill that towered over it, casting a shadow of dark tentacles that seemed to embrace the Earth. The tree was visibly old and nearly all the leaves had fallen off of it due to the changing of seasons. Kara had thought the tree would make suit for a treehouse, but shrugged off the idea to listen to her father talk.
When they reached the top, Kara's father knelt down to let Kara off his back. They had planned to make a "shrine" for Kara's mother. Kara took her backpack off of her back and zipped it open to take out its contents. She pulled out two shell bracelets her mother had gotten from a gift shop in Florida, her mother's favorite perfume, a drawing Kara made of her mother, and a photo of her mother after she graduated from high school. Her father had also brought some things for the shrine: a pepsi can, a pair of sunglasses, and a clay pot that he and Kara's mother made together in a pottery class. Kara smiled at the items that held so much value, sentimental value. Her father began scooting leaves away from the tree, searching for something, but what? Kara was confused by her father's actions, so she watched intently to see what the outcome of this was. After her father seized shoving leaves away from the tree, he moved away to reveal a hole that opened from the bottom of the tree's trunk, to about two feet up the trunk.
This had been the spot where her and her father had placed the items resembling her mother and the memories they shared as well. Her father smiled continuously while making the shrine, he had recalled many memories at this tree, every single one of them made him smile, even the ones that were sad. Finishing up the shrine, her father spoke, "Kara, no matter what, please, don't give up. Don't ever give up on anything. Always believe in yourself and the things that make you want to live. Defend yourself and those you love, please. It is very important you do this, it's important to be different."
Though Kara was only 8 years old at the time, she had known why her father was having this conversation with her. She had known why he was crying, yet smiling at the same time he spoke to her about this. It was because her mother was different, a good different. She had loved nature and would often spend most of her days outside by herself. She studied any and every lifeform she could think of. She was the most down-to-earth person you could meet. She had the heart of a lion, big and courageous. Everyone at school thought she was weird and called her a hippie, but she didn't care. No one wanted to hang out with her, but that was fine by her, she preffered to be alone anyway. She, too, loved the rain. She would spend hours, just like Kara, staring out of windows, in a focusing trance that fixated on each and every droplet. Sometimes she even went outside and ran around, spun, and danced in the rain.
Her father continued, "Your values and beliefs are the most important things about your persona. They define you and make you who you are, which you are a beautiful soul. Kara, you are so beautiful, just like your mother. She loved you with all her heart, and she often told me about how you were going to end up just like her. I-I'm so proud of you, babygirl. Please, don't ever change, don't ever. Be yourself, believe in what makes you happy." That had been the end of the conversation. Only very few times did the subject come up after, but only those very few times.
Kara immediately knew what she was going to say when her father got home. She was going to remind him of that day, the day they made her mother's shrine and had the conversation about Kara's character. She was going to tell him exactly why she had punched that boy in the face and left him with a swollen prune for an eye. She was going to tell him that she believes in racial equality and that she didn't agree with the way that that boy had been pushing the black boy around. She was going to tell him that she was defending a loved one and it made her happy, it made her want to live.
And there was nothing he could do about it.