"It's okay. Everything will be okay," says the raspy, tired voice of my grandfather. The words are muffled by my own rapid heartbeat drumming up a death march. He lies on his hospital bed, a mere shadow of who he once was. The cancer has stripped away every ounce of fat and muscle that once warmed his embrace. The loose folds of his skin cling to his gaunt frame. His pulse is weak. I tell him it's fine. But under my finger, I feel the dull, barely noticeable throb that takes longer to come each time, and it isn't. Nothing is fine today. Perhaps I just fancy myself as the protagonist of a bildungsroman, but for some time after Dada's death, I was Holden Caulfield. Everyone at his funeral was such a phony. An aunt came into the house weeping …show more content…
I had a heavy course-load at school, and none of my teachers were interested in teaching. I'd recently learned that my family would be moving to the United States soon, taking me continents away from all my friends. Furthermore, I'd just discovered my attraction to girls, which terrified me since homosexuality was criminalized in Dubai, and my parents were fairly conservative. In many ways, Dada was my Phoebe. He was the one person who listened to me when most adults in my life were too self-involved to care. He was my safety blanket; I could always tell him about my problems without the fear of judgment or …show more content…
Dada's death took away one of the last constants in my life, and I started to lash out on those around me in order to avoid dealing with my own emotions. When I realized this, I looked back to Dada's last words for inspiration. He'd said that everything would be okay, and I knew that if I wanted his last words to come true, I would have to make things okay. I committed myself to persevering through the change by opening myself up to friends, making myself vulnerable, and trusting them to not exploit that. I shared my thoughts online, both helping and being helped by people in similar situations. Slowly, my fears of being tossed into a brave new world subsided. I learned to let go of the past, and began to adapt to change instead of fighting
Father, computer server engineer, alcoholic, and felon. My dad, Jason Wayne DeHate, has influenced my life, not only genetically, but he has also improved my character and creativity throughout the years. Beginning at age two, I was cultured with profanity spit from rappers such as Eminem. While my mother was at work we had multiple videotaped “jam sessions” and coloring time that allowed for the foundation of friendship we have today. The jam sessions consisting of me mumbling and stumbling in front of the television, as he was “raising the roof” from his lazyboy. Since then, he has taught me how to rollerblade, change wiper blades, and play my favorite sport, tennis. Along with influencing my leisure activities and the music I enjoy, his prominent personality allows me to grow as a person. Being the only male figure in my immediate family, I
Growing up, my father’s absence played a major factor in my stride for success. His absence was the scapegoat for why I always felt like I may not be good enough – or why I’d be looked at as an outcast. I’ve always made it my first priority to overcome his negligence by attempting to do my best in school – earning good grades, joining school clubs, giving back to the community. However, never did I receive the recognition I’ve always dreamed of and never was I satisfied with my outcome, but never did I think that I would find through the one who seized it all.
When I was a young child, my dad was my idol and hero. He seemed to know everything and had the solution to every problem. Any difficulty I had, anything I didn’t understand, my dad had the answer to everything. It seemed like it was every day that he taught me a new valuable life lesson and always had wise advice to share. My dad used to work all day long in Boston and my brother and I would wait by the door to greet him with a crushing hug as soon as he came home. I used to wait eagerly for my dad to come to my room to read me a bedtime story and then tuck me into bed. My dad could do no wrong. He was right about everything and knew how to deal with anything. However, as I grew older, my convictions changed and the image I had of my dad fragmented.
It only takes a moment to change the way you think, the way you feel and the way you act. During my period of infancy and preschool I was spoiled, as one could be coming from low middle class family in Brazil. I was loved, cared for and wished for nothing. However my father’s family thought, that since I had so much love from my mum’s family, that they would introduce me to the hatred and pain that the world could offer. I don’t remember a moment, which my father’s family showed any positive feeling towards me or my mum’s family. They thought of us as trash even though they weren’t better than us and I thought that the only good person that came out of my father’s family was himself. That is till I was five years old, and I watched from the shadow as my father kicked my mother, till she was no longer screaming or crying for him to stop. That is the most vivid memory I have as a child. I remember looking at my mother with blood on her arms, and wondering why she never took her arms away from her face, to try to protect the rest of her bod...
Losing my father was a major obstacle in my life. However, through overcoming this hardship, I was able to learn a great deal about myself and how to overcome other obstacles. Through observing my mother and how she dealt with her loss, as well as my own, I found strength and a different view on confronting obstacles. Additionally, it taught me to seize every moment I can. While losing a parent is a very difficult obstacle that I would wish on no one, in an unfortunate way, losing my father taught me many things about
Going through life means experiencing great happiness but also great loss. Every loss we face may hurt and cause us grief, but we must let life take its course and endure the pain, for we cannot know true happiness without knowing true sorrow. Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” discusses the hardships that come with pain and loss and gives insight about how a person can overcome that pain. Even the pain might hurt a great deal right now, the wound will only heal if we allow ourselves to feel that pain. As famous poet Lao Tsu once said, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
My father was always there for me, whether I wanted him to be or not. Most of the time, as an adolescent trying to claim my independence, I saw this as a problem. Looking back I now realize it was a problem every child needs, having a loving father. As hard as I tried to fight it, my dad instilled in me the good values and work ethic to be an honest and responsible member of society. He taught me how to be a good husband. He taught me how to be a good father. He taught me how to be a man. It has been 18 years since my father’s death, and I am still learning from the memories I have of him.
Nothing has changed my life more since the realization that I had to make who I was something that I chose, and not something that just happened. Since this revelation nothing seemed the same anymore, as though I could see the world through new eyes. It changed everything from my taste in music, literature, and movies. Things of a dark and pessimistic nature used to hold a strong allure for me, and yet I found much of things I once enjoyed didn't seem to entertain me anymore. I remembered the mental state that I once held and now seeing how I have changed, know that I can never return to the prison I came from.
One person that I care for very deeply is my dad. He is The reasons he means so much to me is because he helps me whenever I need help, plays sports with me, and he is just like one of my friends.
My once carefree childhood was replaced with sterile, colorless rooms where physicians would crowd around me like a specimen under a microscope. They poked and prodded with their cold, lifeless instruments. It always ended the same, though. I saw me mother wearing the expression of both apprehension and melancholy on her face. I heard the doctor’s muffled utterances migrate to my ears saying, “The prognosis is not good.” As a result, I came to realize that the thread holding my life was dangling in front of me, mocking my imminent mortality. A thick mass of gray clouds migrated into my head filling the void with hopelessness.
On the day my father died, I remember walking home from school with my cousin on a November fall day, feeling the falling leaves dropping off the trees, hitting my cold bare face. Walking into the house, I could feel the tension and knew that something had happened by the look on my grandmother’s face. As I started to head to the refrigerator, my mother told me to come, and she said that we were going to take a trip to the hospital.
It has been twelve years since my father passed away. To this day I live with guilt from my mother that I did not become a fisherman like she had wanted. I went to university and became a professor at Midwestern University in Illinois. I like to think that at least I made my father happy. He had wanted me to go to school and get an education because he had never had an opportunity to. From a young age he had been a fisherman just like his father and my grandpa’s father. It was the norm to be a fisherman from where I’m from in Port Hawkesbury which is on the Cape Breton Island.
What made the death of my mother a stressor for me was that besides the fact that I lost my mother, her passing was so sudden; she was alive when I went to bed that night and then she was not when I woke up the next morning. She had been unwell for a really long time, but none of us had ever thought that it was bad enough to take her life. Her death affected every aspect of my life and my family’s life; it forever changed my relationship with my father and it will continue to affect how my family operates for the rest of our lives. If she had not died, then my father would not have remarried and I would not have gotten a stepmother; that is just another aspect that was permanently altered by one event. On top of that, she passed away at home
Some memories are best forgotten, but it takes courage to go through them. Often, I wish to forget the day when I almost lost my parents in a tragic car accident. As my world came crumbling down, I prayed and hoped that the nightmare would soon end. I endlessly fought the sense of helplessness, isolation and fear of the uncertainty. I was 19 and clueless. Nevertheless, I sailed through these dreadful days and welcomed my parents home after six long months. In the months that followed my parent’s return, I juggled between taking care of my parents, graduating college and adjusting to my new job. Almost 10 years later, this dark phase still has a phenomenal impact on me. Perhaps, because this specific experience transformed me into a grateful,
Now that I’m 38 years old; 13 years since the death of my father and 28 years from the death of my grandfather, I find my perspective changing all the more rapidly.