Time_to_Say_Goodbye

Time To Say goodbye It’s early in the morning as the sun was beginning to peak over the mountains. This was the one day I didn’t want to wake up for. I feared this day since his birth. Every mother hates the day her son turns seven. The military training they go through is heart breaking for a mother. At such a young age they steal the young men of Sparta. Its tradition of the Spartan law. I wake completely and begin to prepare myself for the day. Walking down the hall I catch a light breeze that is colder than usual. The sky was covered by clouds so sever I couldn’t see the sun. It was already an off day. I wake the children and feed them breakfast that was quickly prepared. The kids run off to play so I walked down the road to visit some friends for a short while. I approached Jamie and kali because our sons were playing together. Kali was another mother that had to lose her son to Spartan law. Jamie had to deal with this last year. She still hasn’t accepted that her son is gone. We walk the streets talking about the situation. Jamie tries to comfort us as Kali begins to tear up a little. I swallow my sadness and hide my tears; I have too much pride to show weakness. The thought of my little boy being gone till the age of eighteen was almost too much. The Sparta military is a very strict program, the boys live, train and sleep in their barracks of their brotherhood. At school they are taught survival skills and other skills necessary to be a great soldier. School courses are very hard and painful. Reading and writing is not very important to the Spartans. I remember a old friend telling me stories of when her son was sent off to Spartan military. She had told me that they did not feed the boys well and the boys were told stealing food was okay as long as they were not caught, if they were caught, they were beaten. The boys walk barefoot, sleep on hard beds. They were subjected to strict discipline and harsh physical punishment; they were trained to take pride in the amount of pain they could endure. I stop and take a second to ask myself if I had even fully prepared my son for what he was about to get into. At the age of eighteen Spartan boys become military cadets and learn the art of war. At twenty, they join the state militia, a standing reserve force available for duty in time of emergencies in which they serve till there sixty years old. Kali and I will not be able to look forward to visiting our son’s families and our sons at home because men serving in the military are unable to live at home with their families. We all call our sons, play time is over. Now the part of the day that I have been dreading. The time to say goodbye has come. We go back to our house and I prepare to send my son off. It doesn’t take much to make sure he is well packed but I have double checked a million times. The sun is right above me, this time tomorrow things will be different; it’s time to say goodbye.