Beginning of Essay
Last summer I strolled down the alley behind Avalon Street. It was decorated with the scent of freshly cut grass and the taste of bright sunshine. Tiny rocks dusted the pathway leading to a familiar backyard. Everything in the yard was kept desolate and unscathed ....

Middle of Essay
.... hunt, and a shelter for all sorrows. The tree seemed to guard the tomb where we had buried her that cold July morning. She had died peacefully and painlessly. At least those thoughts are what I clung to after waking up drenched in cold sweat and tears. With the whisper of a breeze, I was flung back into the watercolors of my memory, and one nightmare mural of my childhood protruded. The heat lavishly fed the dirt pathway with the first freezer pops of summer. School had been out for three days, and lobster bodies grazed at home. The sun showed no mercy to my small town during June. I would be turning twelve that summer, and my brother would turn nin ....