I climbed up onto my parent’s bed. I had to reach for the shelf where my dad’s pocketknife was. I was only 7 years old and like any other 7 year old I was curious. I grabbed the knife and pried open the blade. I looked at it, careful not to cut myself. When I decided I was done I closed the blade. That simple task ruined my day. I sliced my finger. It was like a bad paper cut. I sneaked around my dad and got a band aid. I hid my cut the best I could, not wanting my dad to see it.
I was scared of my dad. I was scared he would be disappointed at me. I was scared he would be mad at me for getting hurt and for looking at his knife. He never wanted his children to get hurt. He was worried easily and rarely said that was an accident and told us ways to prevent it. “Slow down” or ‘You almost hit your head.” I almost never got away with doing anything in front of him. When we do get hurt he is not as calm as my mom, he is not crazy but it is easier to approach my mom with an injury. However he is also very nice he does not get mad easily, but when he does there is almost nothing worse. He usually gets mad when we complain about something he or my mom tells us to do, but showing him my finger was too much of a risk.
I stayed upstairs and bandaged the cut the best I could. I rinsed it underwater making sure I did not put soap on it. Never a cut on my body has become infected so for now letting my finger sting with soap is worse than getting infected. More blood kept seeping out and did not seem to stop. Even when I stuck the band aid to my finger it became quickly saturated and had to be taken off. Probably none of these problems would have happened if I were a little older and knew how to bandage a wound. I instead resorted to clenching a rag around it.
I thought about why I was not going downstairs and showing my dad my cut. I concluded that it was because I could fix this myself. Eventually the bleeding will stop and I would be back to normal. No one would suspect anything. I knew though that the real reason I was not telling him was because I did not want him to think I was an idiot. Even for a 7 year old closing a pocketknife should not be too much of a challenge but somehow I messed that up. I almost was going to sow him and say that I cut my finger on something else. I thought he might not be so mad if my cut was not on his knife.

Eventually my Mom came home from the grocery store. She started to come upstairs and before I could hide she saw me. Even if I did manage to get away the red blood stains on the carpet would of worried her. Even today she still remembers the horrified looked on my face.

“Daniel, what did you do?” She did not panic. Instead she brought me downstairs to my father which I have been spending all day trying to avoid. My dad grabbed my hand to see the cut.

“What did you do? You could have been really hurt. You might have needed stitches.”

I responded, “It’s not that bad. I’m fine.” I had an answer for everything that had to do with me getting hurt but I did not have an answer for his next question.

“Why did you not tell me?”

I weakly replied, “I don’t know.” That was the truth.

They were not mad, they comforted me but I could tell they wished I told them. It iis like there is no way around not disappointing somebody for doing something.

Throughout the years I was and still am nervous about telling my dad that I got hurt. I don’t know what it is but I know he will be disappointed in me. Whenever anyone else gets hurt I try to hide it. I know they would be disappointed in me for letting them get hurt even if it was an accident. The worst part about coming home from summer camp was telling my dad I sprained my wrist. I did not care about the pain in my wrist it was telling my dad. I always feel like he will be disappointed in me.