I can’t ever remember being alone in my life. There has always been someone to talk to, to hold, to be with. There has always been someone there.

At school I have my friends; my friends that I laugh with, my friends that I eat lunch with, my friends that I wave goodbye to when I leave. All day I am around my friends........ but they sit over there alone.

When I come home from school, I am with my family. They ask me how my day was; no long discussion, just conversation. We eat together and watch television together........ when they get home, no one asks them. They are alone.

As I go to bed, I am with my Lord. We talk and he puts his arms around me as I sleep......... but they do not know him. They sleep alone.

They don’t know the joy of laughter, only the pain of tears. They have never been hugged, only pushed away. They long for someone’s hand to hold, but no one reaches out. They only dream of a life like mine; a life of love.

  My name means "My Judge is the Lord". Its meaning describes my faith perfectly. The Lord is the foundation of my life. My Judge is the Lord.

My name has also brought me up strong. My brother wanted a little brother and decided my name should be Daniel. As fate should have it, I was a girl; girl in the flesh at least. As I grew, my brothers still dreamed of a little brother. They treated me rough; not too rough, just enough to keep me tough. They taught me to fight, play baseball, and how to stick up for myself. They molded me into a "tom boy".

As the years went by, I became as sly as a fox! By watching them I attained that boy’s initiative to worm my way out of a bad situation.

Danielle; a name, but so much more.

  The quiet streets, the miles of open fields, the soft waves of the earth; this is my neighborhood. My neighborhood has no fancy mall or restaurant, no extravagant churches or apartment buildings. Where I live there are no fire hydrants or concrete sidewalks; only sheets of brown and green as far as the eye can see.

In my neighborhood, everyone knows who you are when they see your face. Even if they haven’t seen you for years and you’ve grown a foot and a half, they seem to spot you from a mile away.

The people in my neighborhood aren’t afraid to come up and give you a big hug when they meet you. Their kind hearts and their dinner tables are always willing to make room for anyone who chooses to befriend them.

To call this place where I live a neighborhood is hardly fitting. My neighbors are not your typical neighbors. My neighbors are my family, and my neighborhood is my home.

  Everyone in my family has different hair. My oldest brother ,David, has hair like a peach. It is short and very soft with small waves on the top. Robert has sandy blonde hair that curls like fishing hooks on the bottom when he lets it get too long. Jeffrey’s hair is like grass. It is very thick and prickly, but rather soft when you run your fingers through it. My hair is crazy. It goes wherever it wants, and looks like ramon noodles when it is wet. My dad has short brown hair with a tiny bald spot in the back where the hair forgot to grow.

My mother’s hair is like water. It is smooth and calm, but somewhat unruly when she sleeps too long. Her hair never changes. It is constant and reliable. It shields your face when you cry into her shoulder, like an umbrella from the rain. It is momma’s hair.

  "Everybody knows that when you pull the plug out in the bath tub, the water gets sucked out into nowhere." He said it so convincingly.

"Really?"

"Really. And if you’re too close to the drain when that last drop goes down, you’ll get sucked out too!"

"I don’t believe you! You’re just tryin’ to scare me!"

"Don’t believe me then. I just hope you have fun out in nowhere."

Well, I’m done with my bath now. I’m not scared. No, I’m not scared, its just that I should probably dry off first, before I let the water out. Yes. It would be better if I get out and dry off first.

Ok, time to pull the plug.

"Why are you running?"

"I forgot something upstairs."

Down, down, down, to nowhere.

"You two wait here in the truck. I’ll be back in just a second." I knew my grandpa would be a while, and my cousin and I could always find something to occupy us in the old truck. We hunted around in the truck for something new to play with. I found an ice pick buried under the rubble in the floor board and showed it to him. He dared me to stab the dash board with it and I couldn’t resist the temptation. After the first whack, he joined in too.

After ten or twelve hits with the ice pick, the dash board started looking more like a peg board. There were holes the size of thumb tacks with little bits of material coming out of each one. Even the places that hadn’t been hit seemed to sag and look shabby.

When grandpa came back to the truck, he didn’t say a word. He just stared at the dash board for what seemed to be forever. When he finally spoke, he asked us if we ever noticed the holes on the dash board before. "What holes?" He pointed to our masterpiece, "Those right there". "Huh, I guess I never noticed them."

As we drove off my cousin and I squirmed in our seats like little worms.

It is very dark. I hold my breath as my cousin counts, "One-thousand forty-nine, one-thousand fifty. Ready or not here I come!" I wait for a minute or two until I can see the light from his flashlight slip behind the house. I start to creep to the front porch like a cat sneaking up on its prey. Crack! Oh no! I stepped on a twig. The light appears quickly. I fall to the ground. He shines it above me, to the left, to the right. He walks around in search of me, but my black jogging suit hides me from his sight. Puzzled, he turns around. I laugh to myself at his naivity. As the light disappears once again, I slowly rise to my feet. I decide I am close enough this time to go all the way. In a siege of boldness I sprint toward the porch. Huffing and puffing, I get closer and closer to the big gray steps. As I get within arms reach, I see that familiar yellow beam strike me in the chest. "Gotcha!" It is Chad’s turn to hide.

  We rounded the curve. I leaned hard against the car door because the pull was so strong. I knew we were going too fast, but I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his friends by making him slow down. We popped over the hill; flashing lights. The cop

came up to the window and I thought I was going to be sick. I turned my head away and held my breath so he wouldn’t see how scared I was. The officer told him to slow down and then walked away, no ticket. When he got home he was lectured; next time the punishment would be severe. I was still sick to my stomach. Horrible images of what could have happened flashed through my mind like lightning. Underneath his tough exterior, I could see that he was sick too.

  I have a friend, we’ll call her Tina, who has a lot of problems in her life. Tina does things that I usually don’t approve of. She doesn’t realize how important her life is, and how much she has going for her. Sometimes I get so mad at Tina that I just want to hit her, but I don’t. I don’t touch her because she is Tina. That is Tina and I love her.

At times I have tried to give up on Tina. I lose all hope that she will change. All the help I give her, and all the love I show her, seems to fly away in the wind. When these times come along, I remember what my friend Rob told me one time. He told me that there is a Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 4:10, which says, "For if one falls, the other can help his friend get up. But how tragic it is for the one who is alone when he falls; there is no one to help him get up."

Rob’s advice changed my attitude toward Tina completely. Tina doesn’t need me to be mad at her or leave her, but to love her and stand by her. She needs someone to talk to and someone she can share her feelings with. Instead of constantly criticizing her on the things I don’t like about her, I have learned to appreciate the times when she does something positive.

I love Tina very much. I know I will always be there to help her up when she has fallen.

  Don’t you just hate it when you do something stupid and everyone has to see it? That seems to happen to me quite often. When I was in seventh grade, I went on a Science Club trip to Six Flags. We had a lot of fun, but got extremely wet.

When we left Six Flags, we went to McDonalds to eat. I forgot to bring dry clothes along with me, so I decided to go into the bathroom and dry off with the hand blowers. It sounded like a good idea, and it probably would have been if I had been paying at least a little attention to what I was doing.

With everyone in line at the counter, I proceeded to walk right into the men’s restroom! I had no clue as to what I had done until I saw one of my male classmates standing at the sink washing his hands. I started to laugh and asked him why he was in the women’s bathroom. About that time, I looked beside me and saw the urinals lining the walls. I spun around like a mad woman, and ran out of the bathroom to find the whole gang laughing at me. I don’t think my cheeks have ever been redder!

  "Why?" I heard the question too many times. Maybe I have a why. Why won’t people let me live my life the way I want to? Why can’t they accept the fact that I don’t want to play softball?

I quit softball hoping to get away from the stress. The yelling, the swearing, the angry fits, they were too much for me to handle. I needed to get away from it, but it followed me even after I quit. In the halls, in the cafeteria, in class, after school, everywhere it followed me.

As much as I tried to fight it, I couldn’t push it from my life. In defeat, I came back; back to the yelling, back to the swearing, back to the angry fits. I put up a shield to guard me from it all, but it is still there, it is still around me beating on my shield.

My family has a lot of things we do together. We go to ball games, go to church, watch TV, and go shopping. We are together a lot, but the times when we are really together, are when we set down for supper.

Every night we set down at the dinner table, say the blessing, and have "talk time". We talk about school, friends, enemies; whatever is on our minds. In the short time it takes our family to inhale a king size meal, we discuss nearly all the news in Pulaski county.

It may seem like a pretty normal thing, but in reality, it makes us a much closer family. It keeps us updated on what is happening in each other’s lives, and allows us to "let some steam off" if we had a bad day. It is our daily "family time" and a big part of our lives.

The bus ride home from Meridian that night seemed to last forever. The conversation we were having was one that you prayed your mother would never find out about. We were being very immature, but somehow the topic was switched to religion. Out of all the choices that the previous conversation would have led to, religion was not one of them. However it happened, we all turned our attention toward God. Who is God? Why should I want to believe in God? Is God even real?

Everyone on the bus had something to say. People I never would have dreamed of stood up and fought for the Lord. They quoted bible verses and spoke from the depths of their hearts. Even after we got back to school, we stayed and talked some more about our faith. It was truly amazing.

I never thought something so bad could result in something so good. The Lord works in mysterious ways; I am glad he does.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I always thought it was so silly. I’m only five! I have my whole life to decide what I want to be. I could be a doctor, a scientist, the president! Ask me later; I am only eight.

Where do you want to go to college? College! I am in Jr. High. I am worried if I will pass the Constitution test, not the SAT. I don’t know where I want to go to college. I am barely thirteen years old!

What are your plans for the future? I want to study accounting at SIU or Murray State University. I want to get married and have three or four kids. One day when my children are grown, I hope to be a foster parent. I don’t want to move to the big city.

My dreams are centered around southern Illinois and the streets where everyone knows your name. I am fifteen years old. I am ready to be an adult.

"Never forget that I love you."

I know that I will always be loved by my friends, by my family, and by my Father. I don’t have to guess or assume; I hear it all the time. I hear it from their lips, I hear it from their actions, and I hear it from their hearts. No matter how crazy life gets, or how much I mess up, they will always be there.

"Never forget that I love you."

You who sit alone at school, you who go home to emptiness, you who sleep alone; never forget that I love you. I may seem occupied, I may even ignore you, but don’t forget that I love you. I care so much about you, but you don’t know it. I will try to be friendlier to you and open my heart to you, but please, never forget.

"Never forget that I love you."

I will never forget; I hope you don’t either.