When I look back, I can remember how it all happened. Before all the chaos took over my life and became one mangled mess. I had had a perfectly wonderful life. No fights, no enemies, no problem whatsoever. Then my heart hardened and began uncaring to alll of those around me.

It was my thirteenth birthday and everyone was there. My parents, my friends and my favourite and only grandmother. That day I got my favourite CD, Susan Aglukark's new release, "Unsung Heroes". My favourite song out of the album is "Believe Again".

From my parents, I received a silver promise ring with a small emerald gem encased in the metal. Inside the band name was engraved above those of my parents. It may have been a promise ring as a witness to my friends and family to keep myself pure until I am married, but, to me, it seemed like a promise from my parents. A promise that we would stay a family, that we would always stay together. If only I could see what was about to happen...

Two years later in the month of December, grandma died of stomach cancer, a week after her surgery. Mom took the death the hardest. It effected her housework, her personality, everything about her. She no longer could do the simplest tasks, like the laundry or vacuuming. Dad and I let it go for awhile and helped her out where we could. After all, I hardly noticed at first that the housework wasn't getting done because I was fighting off a depression of my own.

But after a few months, when I was starting to get my life back to normal with the help and support from my friends, I noticed my mother hadn't improved much. She was still having difficulties emotionally and coping with everyday life. Dad was starting to get concerned. He suggested mom see some help for it, but she refused.

That's when the fighting started. At first it was nothing to be concerned about; just the occasional tiff, but they became more frequent. Louder. More violent.

I began staying out at my friends houses longer each day and more often. Because I stayed out too late, I got yelled at, which made me to not want to go home at all.

For a few days, in fact, I didn't. I told my parents that I was working on a school project with a friend, so they let me stay for a few days at her house, but eventually I had to go back home.

Three months later, both parents sat me down and told me the news; they had signed the papers and were getting a divorce.

What did I do? Was it because I was never home? Was it may fault somehow? Maybe I should have been home more often.

I remember when Anne Morgan's parents broke up; she was completely devastated. She was even more crushed when she was forced to stay with her dad while her mother went off on her own to try and continue to cope with the loss of her mother.

Anne was so upset that she stopped hanging around her normal group of friends, myself included, and joined a really bad group of kids. They weren't exactly the worst bunch in the school but they certainly weren't the best influences on Anne. She started smoking with the group and started to skip classes. Her marks dropped dramatically; Anne had always been a very bright student and never had big problems in any course, but since she lost interest in school, her grades suffered.

I noticed that Anne was avoiding me whenever I tried to talk to her, probably to act cool with her new friends. I slowly and sadly watched Anne transform from a smart, pretty fifteen year old into a girl whose marks dropped, wardrobe changed, ... whose personality had changed.  The warm and loving girl I had grown to call a best friend for nine years was giving me the "cold shoulder" on a regular basis. She who had turned into a late December night - bitterly cold, black and unforgiving.

I was in the kitchen, one of the few times that I was actually home, making Kraft Dinner for myself and listening to the radio. I was listening to Magic 100 FM, even though I wasn't into the kind of music that they played on that station. Dad was very particular about his music and he would kill me if I changed the station. Just as the radio began annoucning the news there was a knock at the door. I turned down the radio and walked toward the front door.

Maybe it was news of my mother. She had been missing for two weeks and told no one where she was going. I was starting to get worried even though I refused to let on. Maybe she had been found. Maybe it was her. I turned the knob and pulled open the heavy storm door. It wasn't my mother.

Two policemen stood in the summer sunlight. Their faces were cotrolled, professional like. They told me that my mother had been found. She had committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills.

After the policemen left - the house filled with silence. It was so quiet, it pounded loudly in my ears. It seemed to shouted "Your mother is dead. You'll never see her again." I felt numb.

Suddenly, I realized that the radio was still on and played a song quietly. The songs lyrics floated over to me on a silent motionless breeze.

It was "Believe Again" by Susan Aglukark; one of my favourite songs... before my life went wrong. The lyrics seeped their way into my brain.

They finally made sense. I could finally relate to what the song said and realized what I had been doing; to my friends, to my dad, to myself. I ran upstairs to where a kept my pormise ring from my thirteenth birthday and threw it hard to the floor. My family would never be the same again. Mom was gone. My family was broken and now, and now, so was my ring. I began to cry. I needed to talk to someone.

That's when she came to me. I was doing my homework when my mother called me down to the backdoor. I was surprised but relieved to see it was Anne. Her face was streaked with tears and her black mascara stained her cheeks where her tears had run down.

I invited her up to my room where we could have some privacy and talk about what had caused her to come literally running to me for my help. She cried as she told me the terrible news of her mother and about the song on the radio. It appeared to me that she was finally melting away from her frigid and icy behaviour. Her heart was warming again, as spring does when winter sheds her last snowflake. So, too, was Anne shedding her tears to make way for proper emotional healing.

I stood up from where I had positioned myself on my bed and walked over to my despondent friend. I gathered her in my arms and just held her as she cried; it was what she needed most.

As I look back and see how my life improved after that day, it makes me thankful for good, faithful and enduring friends. I don't know where I'd be if that song hadn't played on the radio at that time. Maybe I would have joined mom, wherever she went. So, in a way, Susan saved my life. I should thank her for it someday.