Connor’s Bucket List

By Ashlyn Tyler

It was a dark stormy night, Connor’s favorite kind of weather. It wasn’t exactly the storm itself that Connor looked forward to, but it was what came after. The rain would clear the air, making a beautiful and crisp morning. The wind would blow down the bright orange and yellow leaves from the trees. Connor loved autumn and looked forward to the possibilities it brought every year. He never failed to get excited when he watched his classmates go out to pumpkin patches and fall festivals. He would tap away as he watched their stories on social media, feeling the excitement of possibility. Connor had an entire list of events on an autumn bucket list of what he always wanted to do. He had always wanted to carve pumpkins, go to an apple orchard and make fresh apple cider. He also wanted to take goofy pictures in the leaves with his friends. These were all things on his bucket list that his parents found on that dark stormy night. Each of those items remained unchecked, and would remain so until his parents decided to throw it out. Instead of feeling the excitement of possibility during that storm, his parents felt the dread of the morning. His parents’ heart ached with a hollowness that suffocated them, Connor’s autumn bucket list was only adding on. His parents would never see these things in the same light as Connor ever again. Without their own son, how could they? That dark stormy night filled them with the dread of burying their son the next morning. They would have to come face to face with everyone that had only claimed him as a friend after he was gone. They would be coming eye to eye with the very individuals who let him comment on their posts, yet never once invited him to join, and with the same people that left him alone during lunch, and never even gave him a happy birthday wish. His parents could never bring themselves to say anything to them because it would always be too painful to bring up. They knew that they wouldn’t be burying their own son if someone would’ve crossed off something from his bucket list with him.

6