“From every wound there is a scar, and every scar tells a story. A story that says, I survived.” Craig Scott sums up my life in a sentence. From an abusive alcoholic father, to not having a home, to losing the only man that loved me from the beginning, I have gained many of these scars. Throughout my life I have been hit with challenges right after challenges. The hardest battle was the one I lost. On May 23, 2014, I lost my Papa. With my first loss, I had to take a hard look at life, and I learned many things.
Through the tears of losing my partner in crime, I opened my eyes to the realization that life comes with a silver lining. All through my life I have been blessed with one miracle after the other, but through loss of Papa and the gaining of Eli, I truly saw it. For the longest time, I was unable to see any way that my life could be able to recover. Nothing would ever fill the whole in my heart, after the portion my Papa took with him. You see, a week after my Papa went to party with the angels my brother Elijah Blaine Nielsen was born. It was as if God had sent me a reward for letting him take away my life. I understood that not everything was wrong with the world and that maybe there was hope for joy to come back. I remember when I was young and would cry constantly about how my father didn’t love me, and my Papa would calm me down by saying, “Don’t see it as, ‘He doesn’t love me’, see it as, ‘Others love me’..” As a child I didn’t understand the thought process behind this silly saying, but as a young adult, I understand the silver lining. Although losing him was a pain that I will never be able to mask, I have been able to pull away the look on life that there is always a silver lining.
Many things came...
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All through my life, I have been shaped by events. I have persevered through the struggles of not having a childhood, just a young adult life, having a monster of a father, the changing of my life multiple times, and the loss of my Papa, along with others. Out of all my molds I was given, I was shaped the most by the taking of my beloved Papa. I realized that life has a silver lining; you just have to choose to see it. I came to terms with admitting I need someone to hold me when times get rough, my God. And most of all, I recognized that growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Losing love is hard, but there are many things that are enable you to grow as a person, so in the words of Ben E. King, “Even the hard times are part of your life story. If you acknowledge them and move past them, they eventually add up to the experiences that make you wise.”
Life can always change direction. We can have certain obstacles that challenge us. Sometimes this makes us stronger and we can always learn through these times. We always have
The scars of our pasts are said to have established a place among our present, however visible or invisible, and that these scars, through time, are unpeeled before our future selves. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is about the story of a man, Amir, who relays his life during the times of peace and conflict in Afghanistan, and his life in the United States. It is about the life of a man who tries to escape his shameful past, but is constantly lost and incomplete as a result. As the story revolves around the life of Amir, from childhood to adulthood, Hosseini utilizes first person point of view of Amir, various use of diction, and the symbolism of kites to reveal the underlying message of how the past is a part of whom we were and who we are today.
When I was younger, I remember feeling as though I lived in a bubble; my life was perfect. I had an extremely caring and compassionate mother, two older siblings to look out for me, a loving grandmother who would bake never ending sweets and more toys than any child could ever realistically play with. But as I grew up my world started to change. My sister developed asthma, my mother became sick with cancer and at the age of five, my disabled brother developed ear tumors and became deaf. As more and more problems were piled upon my single mother’s plate, I, the sweet, quiet, perfectly healthy child, was placed on the back burner. It was not as though my family did not love me; it was just that I was simply, not a priority.
I, Chandler Smith, have had a very steady life. Growing up I never had to fight to eat or worry about where I was going to sleep. I had a very blessed upbringing. I never had a spontaneous moment to where I suddenly knew who, or what my life really meant. I had a good highschool football career, being a jock and playing with my friends, not a care in the world. Until one day at practice I went in for a tackle, and dislocated my shoulder. I tore the labium and needed surgery, ending my senior season and my football career.
My childhood was somewhat gloomy due to an alcoholic father; verbal and physical abuse was part of my upbringing. An event that I remember that shaped my life was when I failed the first grade. As a child I could perceive it, and these events helped to reinforce and mold future behaviors. During my teenage years I had much difficulty with love relationships even at times having inferiority complex after a breakup.
Jerry Sittser’s book not only brings readers into loss with all its real emotions and pain but it also highlights truths that can be applied to anyone’s life. Sittser’s faith is evident throughout the book and his struggle of finding his faith within his loss and sorrow is encouraging to many. In the end, through his loss, he finds God again and through the writing of his book is now able to offer many insights on the Christian perspectives of sorrow, loss, forgiveness and how mental illness affects families. Sittser inspires readers because they have witnessed that they can too grow and continue living life despite their loss and without forgetting their loss.
For twelve years I’ve tried to hide my pain and fear from you. I’ve been trying to ignore the horror stories, unknowingly blinding myself from the stories of hope. I’m not as bitter as this story may lead you to think. In fact, I am an adamant believer in the statement (overheard three years ago in the Coffee House): “God has never taken anything away from me that he hasn’t replaced with something better.”
I was raised by my mother and grandmother. They kept my head leveled and taught me that working hard leads to success. I loved them, and they were my role models. I grew up in a middle class family with strong women. I learned independence, and the strong will to never give up. It was the summer of 2005 when my mother re-married, and I was in the eighth grade. My mother was happy because she found the conclusion to her life: a husband. I was ecstatic because I finally had a daddy! My hopes, wishes, and dreams had come true. I felt that God answered my prayers. I loved having a father figure, although I had certain doubts. My uncertainty came from the way he looked at me. He looked at me the way men crave women. However, I concealed my unclear feelings because I did not want to ruin the current circumstances. Unfortunately, all of my suspicions were true.
During this present stage of my life I can already senses different losses approaching. One loss I anticipate, is the loss of less responsibility filled time. In high school, I was never stressed about school, I could balance all my responsibilities and get by without stressing about classes. However, once I entered college I realized my high school antics would not get me to where I wanted to be in classes. With school kicking up responsibility and needing to work to pay for certain necessities, an always being pressured to plan out every detail of my future it is hard to find the care free time I used to experience. In addition to this loss during emerging adulthood, I am sure that I will go through a loss of love. This is a common loss, but in this class I have learn it is okay to grieve this loss. I realized it is not just “puppy loss” that I simple need to move on from.
My brother needed to be spoon fed every meal, clothed every day, and tucked in every night. Now my grandmother needed a helping hand too? The soldiers that I had bared arms with were lying on the ground before me. And I knew it was incumbent that we as a family carry or even drag them to sanctuary, even if I had to push my goals to the side for the time being. My mom and I did everything we could the past two years to help make our loved one's lives that much easier. And we did. My dad has rehabilitated his body, my brother is graduating from the special education department and can dress himself, and amongst all these blessings in my life, my grandmother is now devoid of the cancer that once threatened her life. But beyond all these improvements, I was metaphysically revitalized; my appreciation of both family and philosophy were
Everyone has a story, a pivotal moment in their life that started to mold them into the person they are today and may even continue to mold you to the person that you will become, I just had mine a little bit earlier than others. When I was three years old my brother became a burn survivor. It may seem too early for me to remember, but I could never forget that day. Since then, I have grown, matured and realized that what my family and I went through has been something of a benefit to be and an experience that has helped me in deciding what I want to do with the rest of my life.
Have you ever had a time in your life where you felt like everything was just dumped on you? I did, and undoubtedly it happened just as I came to school at State University. That saying, “When it rains, it pours,” just seemed to fit me perfectly. Within a two week period one of my friends from high school committed suicide, my grandma went in the hospital, and my boyfriend broke up with me. Yet, from these experiences in my life, I grew, more than I have ever grown before. This is why I am writing about it. Although, everyone goes through hard times, there were not many people out there who related to me. That is why it was hard to get help when it was needed. Maybe someone can learn from my experience and be just as strong as I was.
As a child we lost things as a family like our house. I had to grow up quickly with some of the hardships that arose and I think I lost trust in the adults around me. I then as an adult have lost boyfriends and jobs. If I were to dig deeper into my psyche I would say my reactions were always the same. I experienced emotional pain, more distrust, and a harder exterior. Things seem unfair like everything was out of my control. But when I examine my situations a little differently now that I have gain more life experience, I think it was my outlook. Or how those thought were shaped as a child. Also in my adult years I lost two friends to death. One was an ex boyfriend who had immigrated to Canada after I immigrated to New York. Even thought we were no longer romantically involved we still stayed in touch as friends. He was announced as missing in the news reports and three weeks later he was found and the cause of death was determined a suicide. This was upsetting. I felt sadness and a loss. More importantly I felt I was entitled to my loss as it was a personal relationship I had to him, unlike my grandmother’s which removed me from the situation
As a couple days passed by I asked my mother if we were going to keep my animals, Luke and Leia our Siberian huskies, and Tazz our cat. She said no, and things got even worse, I felt like I should just end my life now to make all the pain go away. But, I took a deep breath, and I said to myself “You need to keep going no matter how hard things get, carry on.”
I was having a weekend getaway with my cousins when, at midnight, we were told that we had to return immediately. I was unaware of the gravity of why I had to come back home so soon, but I knew that it was severe. When I arrived to the hospital, I found out my brother had suffered a heart attack and passed away. I was numb and didn’t know how to process that information. He was my guiding light on my journey going back to school and coping with the death of my first brother. Instead of crying hysterically, all I could think of was “situations like this need to be prevented.” It could have been easy to give up but perseverance and resilience were my only options. Giving up on my dreams had never crossed my mind but my fortitude grew stronger with every wrench thrown my