Sixty-five years ago, a man who protected American citizens was born. Although, I wasn’t with him entirely in his life, he was still a hero. He grew up with opportunities to learn, grow, and keeping the best memories. I was the first ever grand child that was born to him, that life I was living changed dramatically in the spring of my seventh grade year. My beloved grandfather was diagnosed with liver disease. It was unpredictable news, I was with my mom and brother in Indiana for the half of my seventh grade year until the end of February, we decided to go back to South Carolina. “Grandpa has liver disease, I just got done talking to him on the phone.” my mother said while she was crying. I laid on the couch with utter shock, I didn’t know what to say. “He will probably die, there’s nothing to do about it.” In the beginning of March, we packed all of our stuff that we took with us and put it in the car. We drove to South Carolina that took us 12 hours, we went inside of the house and I glimpsed my grandfather laying on the couch watching television. He smiled when he saw us comin...
As I walked through the door of the funeral home, the floral arrangements blurred into a sea of vivid colors. Wiping away my tears, I headed over to the collage of photographs of my grandfather. His smile seemed to transcend the image in the pictures, and for a moment, I could almost hear his laughter and see his eyes dancing as they tended to do when he told one of his famous jokes. My eyes scanned the old photographs, searching for myself amidst the images. They came to rest on a photo of Grandpa holding me in his lap when I was probably no more than four years old.
The joys of having a loving, caring, and sweet grandmother, all stolen from me by cancer. The day of her diagnosis and the doctors giving her a time expectancy. Sitting in the room, Dr. Vargas mumbled, “Lucila Toro, I’m sorry to inform you have stage two pancreatic cancer.” As a child, I was trying to grasp this information of how all my beliefs in God could fail me, death I had hoped my
When I walked inside the front door something didn’t seem right. The feeling of sorrow overwhelmed the house. It was so thick I could literally feel it in the air. Everyone was motionless. They were sulking;I was befuddled. The most energetic people in the world, doing absolutely nothing. I repeatedly asked them what was wrong. After an hour or so, my dad pulled me aside. He said that my Aunt Feli had passed away last night. My mind went for a loop, I was so confused. I thought that he was joking, so I replied “You’re lying, don’t mess with me like that.” and punched his shoulder softly while I chuckled. My dad quickly started tearing up and said, “There...
My fingers were struggling to dial 9-1-1, all I could think about was the intense crying of my mom going on in the background. What was going to happen? After the few ringing tones, an operator answered. I quickly explained that I needed an ambulance immediately. The operator said paramedics would be there in a matter of minutes. Those minutes were the longest minutes of my life. After the phone call my mom asked me to help her get my grandmother out of bed. When I went into my grandma’s room I grabbed one of her arms while my mom grabbed the other, and we pulled with all of our strengths. I was shouting my grandma's name to get a reaction out of her, she just muttered a word and looked up with her soulless eyes. As we struggled to keep her standing the paramedics came through the door. They loaded her up on a stretcher and took her to the Emergency Room. That night I couldn’t sleep thinking of what was happening in the hospital.
It was just a normal day, or so I thought. After school, my guy friend and I went to the lake in Grenada in hopes to escape from reality. I remember the moment as if it happened yesterday. Around, my mother called me. Considering my mom rarely calls me, I already knew what was about to be said. When I answered the phone, all I could hear was crying. My mom could barely get her words out. After a few seconds of hearing her cry, she finally said those four words that I had been dreading for the past five months. “Aunt Patty has died,” my mom said. At this moment, I was at a loss for words. All I knew to do was to hang up the phone and cry. Thankfully my guy friend knew exactly what was said over the phone and allowed me to just sit there and cry. I might not have seen my aunt much during this terrible journey because of school and distance, but this news devastated me. I had never cried so much in my life, especially in front of
I cried in my room for hours wishing my dad would not go, a whole month without him seemed like the end of the world. I would have no one to play hockey with, no one to tuck me in at night and no one to eat donuts with every Friday. My dad tried to console me but I was too angry to listen to him, I suddenly hated my grandpa for causing my dad to leave me alone. At the airport my dad gave me a long hug and told me to be brave since I was now “the man of the house,” (even though I am a girl), I had to take care of my mom. Promptly this made me suck in my tears and stop acting like a “loser.” It was hard repressing my feelings, seeing my dad leave made my eyes tear severely but I held them back, the man of the house does not cry. Time went by faster when I was at school, I had less time to miss my dad. About two weeks later, my mom got a call from India, my grandpa had died. My mom broke down crying, she slammed the phone across the room into the wall. I felt scared to appr...
The man above all the rest, because of his influence on my life, is my dad. He is so special to me that it's hard to put it in words. My dad is the one who had me knowing in my heart by 7th grade, maybe even sooner, that I wanted to teach someday and that I wanted to coach. My dad was a 5th and 6th grade teacher for 23 years. During these years he coached track, softball, volleyball, and my favorite sport, basketball. I think I probably had a basketball in my hands when I was born!
In my family, my father is the head of the household. He is the one that brings in most of the money, keeps everyone on track, and is the family clown. He has such an important role in our life. On February 9th, 2015 a day after my sister was released from the hospital, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement took my dad under arrest. We did not know that in the 5 minutes that he would step out of our home that he was never going to come back. Little did any of us know that that would be our last time being all-together as a family. The arrest and deportation of my father has affected my family emotionally, and financially.
I had the pleasure to interview my grandma, Olga Hernandez. She was born on November 8, 1951 in Cuba. She worked in a workshop making clocks. After she retired, she took care of me while my mom worked. I consider her to be my second mom because she lived with me for eight years. She taught me love, discipline, manners, etc. My grandma is: strong, beautiful, caring, and passionate. Most importantly, she is a breast cancer survivor. I chose to interview my grandma because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I couldn’t think of a better time to do this interview. I like her story because although it’s sad, it has a happy ending. It shows you that no matter how hard things get, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.
My grandmother was born at a time when the Japanese had invaded Korea. At those times girls were not considered to be very important and guys were valued. That has not changed a whole lot even today. Yet my grandma was an extraordinary women, she was the youngest girl in her family and her mother died when she was only five years old. She went to about third grade because Korea doesn't have a public school system and learned most of her reading and writing skills through her older sisters, who knew a little more than her. My grandma was a fast learner and was able to learn Korean and even Japanese quickly. Living under a very strict father she was not able to go farther than the front yard. She was often discouraged in learning stuff such as math, history, and reading and writing. Most of these stuff was often taught only to boys that could afford it. Girls were not taught anything but how to cook and clean. Regardless of her sex she desired for something better. She learned these basic skills independently and even exceeded in them. She loved reading books and read what she could find and she is the most intelligent person I know.
My father's eyes opened, and he called out for my sister Kelly and I to come to him. In a very serious and sad voice, he told us that he was very sick, and he was going to the Fort Wayne hospital. My mother told Kelly and I to help her pack some things for him, because he was going to be leaving soon. We helped her pack, keeping quiet because we did not want to interrupt the silence that had taken over the room.
There was no lawn, but there were four flower planters. The house was painted all white, with the exception of the front door that was painted light green. My grandfather was still young, strong, and full of life, he always had time to play with his grandchildren. Every Sunday he would take us to the park, would buy us ice cream, and take us to Sunday mass. On the day when this picture was taken, we were celebrating my 10th birthday, and I was dancing with my grandfather. I cannot remember the song, but I do remember what he told me while dancing slowly. He said “My little girl” how he used to call me,” in five years you won’t be a little girl, you will become a young lady.” At that moment I could not understand what he meant, but in my mind I was saying “grandpa I will always be your little girl.” While dancing, he made me a promise, “My little girl on your 15th birthday, I will dance the first song with you.” Who would know that he was going to die on my 15th birthday year, he passed away on June 21th, 1987 on Father’s Day. He left me with so many beautiful memories, but the most important was my first dance on my 10th birthday. On the night before my 15th birthday, I went to bed around 10 p.m. I was feeling depressed, because I was only thinking of the promise that my grandfather had made in the past. A promise that in my mind was not going to
I have met many people so far in this life, but the person I enjoy remembering the most is my husband Jeff. He was born and raised in Tennessee. He is six feet tall, weighs two hundred sixty seven pounds,he has dark brown eyes, and such a nice smile. His hair is jet black with just a few silver and white strands throughout. He is a very big and strong character of a man. And yet he is the most gentle, kind and caring man that I have ever met. Jeff has a sexy southern drawl to his voice. The one person who has influenced my life greatly is my husband, the first reason being because of his positive attitude, his intelligence, and the way he expresses his love.
“We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for hours; I’m afraid I have some bad news your mother had a car accident and unfortunately died…”
When I was young, I drew a picture of my mother. It was her standing in a yard with a house in the background. It wasn't our house, and my mother looked like anyone but herself. Dressed entirely in green, with green hair and a green expression on her green face, she stood in front of a green two-story house surrounded by a green landscape. Green was her favorite color, and I wanted to make a surprise out of the drawing for her.