The Bucket List


I’ve been waiting hours by now. He said he would be here by 7:00 p.m and it’s already 9:32 p.m. I ran upstairs and ripped my dress off. I decided it was official: I have been stood up. I thought he understood me but maybe I was wrong. A girl like me going to Prom with a drop dead gorgeous guy like him; I must be crazy for sure. Maybe I should start from the beginning though. Okay so here is where it started........

I’m sixteen now but third grade is when I lost my best friend. She was a curious person and she loved a great adventure. I guess that was why she had the bucket list. The best friend was my mom. I remember the day she died like it was yesterday.

I was sitting down in Mrs.Robert’s class. She was my math teacher and I was learning multiplication. To be specific I was multiplying seven*four. Then Mrs.Roberts came over to my desk and whispered, “They need you in the office, honey.” I got up without saying anything and started my walk to the office. At first I thought, Great. They finally found out I’m the one who put the butter on the toilet seat”, but that wasn’t the case.

I opened the doors to the office and I immediately knew there was no way I was in trouble. Everyone was looking at me like I was a lost cause. That’s when our principal , Mrs.Robin, called me into her office.
She started out like this, “Honey, please sit down. Now I need to tell you something but you may get very upset with me. Your mother was in an accident.”
I immediately screamed at her, “What happened to my mother?!”
Then Mrs.Robin shot back, “You need to calm down! I don’t want to be rude but you need to know your mother is no longer with us.”
All my memories of her started flooding back into my head. Vacations. Talks. Laughter. Her gone in an instant. All because of a drunk driver. I was an eight year old without a mother and I had no one else. She was my best friend. My father never cared about me. He doesn’t even know who I am. He’s a lost cause in New Mexico for all I care.
So after my mom died I had to find another place to live. Naturally you would think anybody would take an adorable eight year old girl but that was not the case. My aunts didn’t want anything to do with me and the same thing for my uncles. My uncles said they didn’t want to deal with all that girl talk. Then we went to my grandma. I haven’t seen her in forever because my mom wasn’t in a very good relationship with her so I figured I would be put in a foster care, but to my surprise she took me in. It was probably only because she pitied me because I needed somewhere to go. I looked like a lost cause.
So as I was moving into my grandma’s house and cleaning everything out. I saw something of my mothers. It was on a crumpled up piece of notebook paper and it was written in beautiful cursive handwriting. There were blue blotches everywhere on the paper. My mother used to always smear the ink from the pen everywhere. I picked up the paper thinking it was just an old paper filled with her notes but to my surprise it wasn’t. It is now the very thing I mold my life around. It was my mother’s bucket list.
I dropped everything and ran outside with the list. I sat down in a quiet spot and began reading it out loud:



MY BUCKET LIST:
*Run a marathon (26 miles)
*Spend the night in a haunted house!

*Crash a wedding!
*Go to Prom (with a HOT DATE!!)
There was so much more on her list but those four were the only ones not checked off. I couldn’t believe my mom had wanted to do all of this stuff. I couldn’t even believe some of this stuff was written down, but that’s when I promised to myself and my mom I would complete all five of those things. This is when the adventure began.
One of the first things not completed was running a marathon. At first I told myself, “It’s okay. You can just skip this one and your mom will forgive you.” But I had made a promise to myself and I have never broken a promise. This took me two years because first I had to find out when there was a marathon that I could go to and, of course, there were no marathons in my little town in the depths of Alabama but I was going to make it possible. That’s when I finally found a 26 mile run in the state of Georgia. It was called, “The Fun Run” but I did not agree with that because to me running wasn’t fun but I was going to “The Fun Run”.
Then I had to go through one year of training. Keep in mind I was 10 when I first started this so everyone thought I was crazy but I did it all on my own! By the time two years of training went by I was finally ready for race day. I was so nervous and I have no clue why because it wasn’t like I was an Olympian. There were so many people everywhere and I was in the middle of the whole sea of people. It took me approximately 7 hours and 33 minutes. Half the time through the race I thought I was stupid and that I was going to die but the other half of the time I was thinking of my mom and that doing all of this was for her, my best friend.
That’s when the next adventure started; staying the night in a haunted house ( I waited to do this for a little because I needed to not be a huge baby). Now naturally as any girl would do she would ask a friend or somebody to go with her all night. Well, I was a 15 year old without any friends except my grandma and I was not taking my poor fragile grandmother to a potentially haunted house so I went by myself.
I got to the haunted house at about 10:00 p.m. I had plenty of food and blankets and a first aid kit just for safety. Nothing happened for hours so I decided to go to sleep. I guess I had been asleep for about six hours when I felt something touching me. Now some people would say I would be making all of this up but something clearly touched me and nothing was around me so it must have been a ghost. That’s why I decided to leave the house a little early but I still stayed the night.
A year had gone by before the next adventure was completed. Crash a wedding. Now this one I thought would be hard but I found out that my aunt was getting married soon and I was 16 now with my driver’s license so my grandma wouldn’t know that I would be crashing the wedding but technically I wouldn’t have to do this if she would have just invited me in the first place but I guess she still considered me a “lost cause” and wanted nothing to do with me.
As I got ready for the wedding, making myself look drop dead gorgeous, curling my hair and even putting on a dress (which I never do), I started my drive to my aunt’s wedding and since she must have the fanciest wedding in the entire universe I have to drive over three hours away. Why must she be such a diva!? As I make the trip and stop three times to get gas because I have a horrible car, I finally get to the wedding. I can’t just walk in like a normal person. I have to sneak in because I don’t have an invitation to this wedding even though it is my own aunt’s. I don’t know why I can’t get over that she didn’t invite me! I started making a plan to get into the wedding. I started driving around back and found an unlocked door, I went over to it and realized I could sneak in and pop in out of nowhere and she would be so shocked she wouldn’t know what happened. I was so excited I wish I could be like a spy for a living or a detective but that doesn’t matter right now I need to stick to my plan. Get in and scare the daylights out of my aunt.
As I walked in it really was a beautiful wedding but then I started to see everyone I knew. My Aunt Terri, my Aunt Lisa, Uncle Ernie. Why can’t I have a different family who actually cares about me? As I walk into where everyone is seated and waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle I decided to sit in the very back so nobody would realize I had just walked into the wedding uninvited.
That’s when the music started and everyone started walking down the aisle. The groomsmen, the bridesmaids, the flower girl, the ring bearer, the groom and finally the snobby little rat-faced bride. They started the ceremony and all that good stuff when the official said the famous words, “Does anyone object to this marriage?”
That’s when I started to stand up, I flipped my hair back and yelled, “I OBJECT!” Everyone turned around and stared at me. Everyone gasped. My Aunt Lydia screamed, “What is that little snot doing here!?”
I hollered right back, “Crashing your dumb wedding for my mom!”
“What are you talking about? See I told everyone we should have let doctors handle her but no one believed me!” yelled Lydia
That’s when it all happened in a flash but, this is what I remembered. After Lydia said what she had to say I ran straight for her. No one could stop me I was like the Tasmania Devil on the loose. Lydia tried to run but I tackled her and just kept hitting her and all she kept screaming was, “Get off! You lost cause!” She was only making matters worse but she just didn’t know it, so I guess that’s when someone decided to call the cops. I guess I had beat my aunt up pretty bad because there was an ambulance there and it wasn’t for me because I was put in the back of the cop car and no one even cared.
As I got in the cop car most people would think I would be feeling really bad about beating up my own aunt but I was so happy! She deserved it. I was no lost cause. I was amazing! I was completing my mom’s bucket list. That’s when I was taking out of the cop car and taken into a place where I was supposed to tell the cops why I did what I did. That’s when I told them everything. My mom dying, the bucket list, the lost cause, and my plans of crashing the wedding. They told me I had had a rough life but what I did was completely wrong. I wasn’t going to do any jail time. My grandma picked me up and she gave me a really big lecture on how she was very disappointed in me. I didn’t care at all because I was very happy with myself.
Prom. Now I was a senior and I figured okay I can manage going to Prom but then I saw the hot date. Now this was very hard for me. Now there were plenty of hot guys but the problem was none of them liked me. That’s I just started to decide to dress myself up more.
Everyday to school I would wear a really cute outfit and a cute hairstyle and even a little bit of makeup. That’s when Jordan noticed me. He asked me for my number and that’s when we started texting and calling each other. We started hanging out more and more and then eventually we were a thing; a couple. I couldn’t believe it. Then he even asked me to Prom. I couldn’t believe it. On Prom night I took three hours to get ready. I had to look stunning. By the time I got finished getting ready it was 6:45 p.m. He told me he would pick me up at 7:00 p.m. I was sitting there waiting patiently. I checked the time thinking hours had gone by and it was 9:32 p.m. I was really upset. I spent three hours on a stupid boy. I was stupid to even think he really liked me.
I went up stairs and took my dress off and all of my makeup. I decided to call it a night and lay in bed and eat ice cream while watching The Walking Dead reruns. That’s when the doorbell went off. It was 12:00 p.m and I had no clue who would be at the door that late but I went to open it anyway. I opened up the door and there was Jordan standing there in a t-shirt and shorts. He looked like me after I had ran that marathon. He immediately grabbed me and hugged me. I pushed him away.
He said, “What was that for?”
I practically screamed so the whole neighborhood could hear, “For being such a jerk! You completely stood me up and this was my last chance to complete the list for my mom. You knew how important it was, too!”
That’s when he shot back, “Live your own life! Everything you ever talk about is your mom and that stupid list! You are...” but before he could finish I punched him and slammed the door. I never heard from him again after that but I always saw him and I was completely over him as he was just a waste of time.
The next day I went to my mom’s grave. It had been a while since I had been there. Everything looked the same until I saw something white sticking up by one of the flowers that had been planted there. I picked it up. It was my mom’s handwriting and this is what it said:
I have been waiting for this moment. I knew one day your heart would be broken by someone you thought was special. There are plenty of fish in the sea for you and someone will respect and love you. You are a beautiful young girl and don’t let anyone tell you that’s not true. One day you will find true love and meet your Prince Charming and live your happy ever after. Just wait for the right time.






~ Love Your Proud Mother
That’s when I knew my mom would always be my guardian angel from above. Forever and always.