Over the past several months, my family and I noticed that Molly, our 12-year-old dog, had progressively become more torpid about the house and outside. At first, we thought something was wrong. We believed that she had come down with some sort of sickness. After a while, we came to our senses and deduced that it was probably just old age. Then, she stopped eating. Again, our natural intuition told us wrong, as we figured that it was just a stomach bug, nothing deleterious.
Before this time, I had always felt that Molly was a young, vivacious, cheerful, and gregarious member of our family. I began to feel that she was mortal just like the all of us, as her degradation continued. We took her to the vet for an inspection, still supposing it was just a bug, or she was not feeling well, such that this would not be chronic, but only fleeting. I was busy the next several days while my mom had checked her into the vet, and soon became relaxed as I forgot about Molly over the next several days. Then, one night, it all changed.
As I was passing through the house with my girlfriend, as on any other normal, carefree, Friday night of the summer, my mom stopped us both and told us we should sit down. I almost instantly knew the topic of conversation would be my beloved younger sister. I could tell by the way that my mom drew in her breath before even uttering a word that our little girl was more than just ‘sick’. I had always wondered what life would be like without her. I would have...
I looked around at everyone in the room and saw the sorrow in their eyes. My eyes first fell on my grandmother, usually the beacon of strength in our family. My grandmother looked as if she had been crying for a very long period of time. Her face looked more wrinkled than before underneath the wild, white hair atop her head. The face of this once youthful person now looked like a grape that had been dried in the sun to become a raisin. Her hair looked like it had not been brushed since the previous day as if created from high wispy clouds on a bright sunny day.
Even when at sixty Granny believed she was dying, Granny overcame the sickness because she endured. Endurance is a means of persevering through adversity. Granny recalls riding out to women having babies and sitting with sick animals and people and hardly ever losing one. Granny was not self-absorbed but became involved in helping others through their problems. Mentoring a person suffering an adversity is a chance to help them but also a chance to make use of a personal adversity and persevere. Joseph Wiesenfarth asserts Granny’s children are her consolation for the pain suffered in her life (“Internal Opposition” 106). The attentiveness of Cornelia and the rushing of Lydia and Jimmy to be at their dying mother’s bedside points not to children who consoled their mother but of a mother who consoled her children overcoming adversity for the sake of their future. Focusing on the future is a means of perseverance through
Tears flooded my face as I let her hand go. I love my mother dearly, but without father I had to be the head of the house. The one to take charge in times like these. She was in not in a good place of mind to be rational. Why had father forsaken us like this, why couldn't we just go home and be with him. The thoughts swirled around my head but the next thing I knew was mother laying on the ground in pain. Her face crinkled and puffy as she clenched her stomach in the delicate hands.
...t year, the worst happened. She was diagnosed with cancer, the same kind her mother had died from just a few years back. The bad news hit her like a ton of bricks. Ingo attempted to ease her pain by taking her out and doing all sorts of fun activities, but she found herself getting even more depressed and frustrated every time they went out. To her, it was just a reminder of the bad news and what was yet to come. Her condition began to worsen each and every day. It was unbearable for the family to watch, and as painful as it was to do, they began to avoid her. Anytime they tried to comfort her, she would only snap at them, even though she knew they were only trying to help and had her best interests at heart.
Nancy was only four years old when her grandmother died. Her grandmother had a big lump on the lower right hand side of her back. The doctors removed it, but it was too late. The tumor had already spread throughout her body. Instead of having a lump on her back, she had a long stitched up incision there. She couldn’t move around; Nancy’s parents had to help her go to the bathroom and do all the simple things that she use to do all by herself. Nancy would ask her grandmother to get up to take her younger sister, Linh, and herself outside so they could play. She never got up. A couple of months later, an ambulance came by their house and took their grandmother away. That was the last time Nancy ever saw her alive. She was in the hospital for about a week and a half. Nancy’s parents never took them to see her. One day, Nancy saw her parents crying and she have never seen them cry before. They dropped Linh and her off at one of their friend’s house. Nancy got mad because she thought they were going shopping and didn’t take her with them.
By the time Julie returned her grandmother was ever so lightly snoring. The look of gratification and appreciation of Julie’s previously stern face melted my heart and again my eyes welled with tears. The fence Julie had built around her heart slowly disintegrated as she observed the bond I had developed with her “mom”. With a quivering voice, Julie revealed the stress and emotional turmoil of watching this devastating disease imprison the only mother she had ever known.
The ride home had been the most excruciating car ride of my life. Grasping this all new information, coping with grief and guilt had been extremely grueling. As my stepfather brought my sister and I home, nothing was to be said, no words were leaving my mouth.Our different home, we all limped our ways to our beds, and cried ourselves to sleep with nothing but silence remaining. Death had surprised me once
Her claw like fingernails pierced into my delicate skin. Miss. Lawson was my abusive nanny who acted as my mother when she wasn’t around, which happened to be very often. Miss. Lawson had a very perplexing past that included being in the foster system for all eighteen years of her life childhood, having a miscarriage at the fresh age of twenty-five and finally, what wounded her the most, her husband, the love of her life left her. I knew that Miss. Lawson was more than just a broken hearted nanny whose mission was to make me a prisoner in my own home . She had a heart full of lost love and all she needed was someone to help her acquire it. That was going to have to be me.
I sat in her room at her house with my Mom, Dad and Sister. She was asleep, curled up in a ball, rejecting any medicine we tried giving her. We knew her time with us was almost up but we didn’t want to admit it just yet. It was hard to look at her in the condition she was in: cold, skinny, and pale. My heart was aching and my mind was racing. I knew it wasn’t long before I had to say my goodbyes, but I didn’t want to face reality. Before leaving, I leaned over her hospital bed, hugged her tight, kissed her on her cheek, and said, “I love you.” She opened her eyes and said “I love you” back, with the strength she didn’t seem to have the entire day. That night, my heart was at
I knew it was my Ma. Her hands were always warm, no matter how cold it got. I shifted to the side and she sat next to me. I could tell she hadn’t been sleeping well. Her dark blue eyes accentuated the gray circles around them, but she still maintained that soothing smile that had lulled me to sleep for years. Even after seventeen years of me existing on this earth, my mother still took care of me tirelessly. She did the same with my other siblings, which was no easy task. The thought of my siblings drove the smile away from my face and I looked down at my dangling legs. We had started off with six people; Ma, Pa, my two little brothers, and me. However, my little brothers died of cholera two months after we left home. I could still remember how much agony they endured before they died. I shut my eyes hard as I can as if that would help me erase the horrible images I saw inside my head. Ma rubbed my arm comfortingly, grounding
When I entered her room, I was surprised to discover she appeared to be a dying senior citizen, rather than a woman in her twenties, only a few years older than me. Her depression filled the room with a heaviness that was immediately felt. She knew she wouldn't live much longer. And the thought of leaving her young toddler children, both under the age of five and her husband was excruciatingly painful. I was overwhelmed.
It was like any other summer day for my ten-year-old self. With my pajamas on at three in the afternoon, watching DBZ re-runs on the couch with scissors by my side so I could cut off the tops of the Fla-Vor-Ice popsicles that I was munching on. The sun was beaming through the two window panes facing my TV, causing unbearable glare. Multitasking between listening to the DBZ episode, I ran into my kitchen, grabbed a roll of duct tape, a stool, and some blankets. I jumped on top of the stool, pinned the blanket to the top of the window sill, and started taping the blankets to the wall to prevent the glare. Finally, I could watch my show in peace, with no interruptions, no glare.
I regretted what I’ve done; I wish I never had killed him especially when I realized that he was that he is actually is a boy, I would have had named him Benane instead of Cupcake. I really do wish that I never had sacrificed him. But when I think about it, it’s kind of ironic because Tay9s do sacrifices for religion practice. I wonder is that why they need sacrifice as a religion practice? Is it because nothing can be gain unless we sacrifice? He was the most important living being to me after all, since my dad was the one that gave him to me.
In March of 1998, my father was rushed to the hospital because of a heart attack. I remember getting home from basketball practice without my mother home. Instead, my sister was there with her children. The fact that my sister was there was familiar to me, but something did not seem right. My sister stayed with me and did not tell me what happened. Later that night, after my sister left, the news that followed would prepare me to encounter the most defining moment of my life.
Six months ago I decided that I needed an animal companion. I did a lot of research about Maltese dogs. I looked through the internet to learn if that was the right dog for me. After I was done with my research about Maltese, I looked through newspaper ads and visited the animal shelter to see if I could find one. I came upon an ad in the newspaper for some six month old Maltese puppies, which a lady was selling.