Hard Life

In the fall of 2012, my mother almost succumbed to her illness. I had just begun my freshman year of high school midst angry conversations between my parents and the threat of separation. It would seem as if they bickered about the most irrelevant things, almost as if they had no other reason to fight other than the fight itself. Those moments were excruciatingly lonely, my father worked until the dead of night and my mother would come home exhausted from treatment. I now know that there was no one who felt more unvalued than my mother. I wish I had the ability to iron away this blunder that destiny had fabricated, however foolish this desire is.

My story is not something new or one that has never been told before, but it

My story begins when I looked at the world around me and wondered what it would be like without me. I would stare at the sunset near my home and just wonder. I thought things would function the same. I’m no one who's made a big impact in this world yet. But, I did know I’d have an impact on the people closest to me and though that may not be the world… it is to me. That was enough for me to realize that I had to get better emotionally because I am who I am. I realized I should not allow people’s ignorance determine my emotional state even if it’s from the people within the world I just mentioned. As anyone who’s gone through the same thing, they know it isn’t easy to overcome. I probably had an immense amount of resilience to get through this.

As a child you never think that you would outlive your parents but it I could not change the cards I was dealt with. The world I thought I knew came crashing down around me because I lost the one person that meant everything to me. I was a daddy’s girl from the time I was born until now and

One day waking up thinking this was a normal day at my birth home, Jamaica, I walked to my grandparents’ house, stayed there for a couple of hours, then I saw this pretty, shiny, new Nissan Altima pulled up, and stopped. Moments later a tall dark-skinned guy stepped out the vehicle, fixed his hat, and walked to the door. When the doors open he burst into tears and said to me, “Hey son”, at first my siblings and I was in shock because we have not seen our father since 2004, I did not know what he looked like until I saw pictures of me and him together. Later that night we party and have fun together. The next morning, he drove in and we took pictures, then, we went to dunns-river falls, also we went and eat.

The following months a winter, cold and gloomy, surrounded the house. My grandmother came to stay with us since my father had fallen into depression and needed help taking care of my sister and I. When my grandmother went grocery shopping my sister would struggle with homework without my grandmother’s help. One day when my grandmother left to go grocery shopping my sister approached me, which was unusual of her since its very rare for her to come to me. Her dark brown hair and big eyes reminded me of my self when I was younger. “I’m hungry” she complained, a question she’s never asked me. My father sleeping and my grandmother away, I was the only one left to take care of her and that terrified me. I had never cared for or known how to care for someone else. All I knew was how to evaluate whether or not someone was caring for another correctly.

Even though I’m an average person, my life has taken me through spectacular events, some tragic. People have told me, “The way you tell your stories is so interesting, I want to hear more. You should write a book.”

Even six year old me could see the great suffering my father experienced not only mentally but physically. I recall once walking in the bathroom and seeing my father vomit, it was the first time I seen him so vulnerable. I could see the pain in his eyes. It was our third month in the united states and my father could not find a job, it was killing him. He was considering a job as a dishwasher to support his family, for that I could never repay him. A sprinkle of hope glimmered in our dark world when my dad got a job as a dispatcher at a local Airport, when I look back now I wonder if father ever felt disappointed that his hard nights of studying in college was futile, if he know that he would have to give up his career to support his family. Soon we moved out of my aunt and uncle’s how’s into a small one bedroom apartment in a sketchy neighborhood. By that time my mother has lost a total of thirty pounds. The once vibrant and sociable women was always tired, she often made called relatives back home which resulted in her crying for hours. My father would often cook and clean, it was fascinating to see my dad performing these tasks

The first story of my life was written by my mom. The early years after I was born on September 28, 2002 were fairly eventful. As a young child, I was “never needy and always good at sharing.” Whenever I was in a situation where something was being handed out at a party or in class, I would always wait until last to select. If nothing was left, I would still be content. If something was ever taken from me, I would look at my mother and say ‘Oh well!’ and continue. When I was three years old, having brunch with my mom and dad at Cindi’s Deli, I picked up a kid’s menu and started reading it on my own with no phonetics involved. I “just started reading.” This amazed my parents. This was followed by teaching my classmates how to solve exponents

We walk back to the shelters to get some sleep, and I sit there awake for a minute until my father falls asleep. In the morning when I awake, my father is very sick, so I take him to the doctor. The doctor rejects to help because he is a surgeon. I take my father back to the shelter to let him rest some more. I leave him to go outside to get more coffee. I think back to all the things me and my father have been through. Losing my mother and sister will always reply through my head, remembering them holding hands and moving off to the left, and my father holding onto my hand, and we walking away from them. The last thing I got to do was just look into there eyes and turn and walk away. Once I got back I found my father not there. I knew where he had gone, they had taken him to the furnace. I dropped to the floor wanting to cry, wanting to have a fit like a normal teenager. Deep into his feelings he thought “Free at last.” He was free to only think about surviving, and not to worry about anyone but himself. I will miss my father. I love him. I will never forget how much he did for me, he is the reason why I am still

It began rather calmly in third period College English class in the middle of a warm day in September. The entire class including myself had likely been dreading the idea of typing another paper after the results of the last one, however the idea of typing a narrative instead of an essay offered a slight glimmer of hope at the end of a long dark tunnel. As the time of assigning approached a gentle stir worked its way into and around the frigidly chilled room. Like a shot to the knee with an arrow, our fate was laid before us. We were tasked with writing a personal narrative of three to four pages in length of any topic we choose. Now to some people that may seem like a simple undertaking, however to the majority of the class, the sudden shock of being assigned a paper that wasn’t some form of a compare and or contrast essay was enough to send brain cells into nose dives and levels of panics to heights not seen since Felix Baumgartner threw himself

This personal story project was very difficult for me. Every time I wrote a new sentence I would question whether I should keep the topic or not. I would question if this story even told anything significant at all about me. But I realized it really does tell a big portion of my life. This piece is very personal to me in describing who I am and why I am like this as a person. It is mainly about how my fathers and my brothers’ addiction has shaped my life. It is about how their addictions impact my life and my previous (and present) experiences. But in the end, it made me a stronger person. It made me more independent. If I told any other story, my fellow classmates, the audience, would not take anything away from it. To them, I feel as though I would still be the same, quirky Bella. This truly shows another side of me.

My first memory was sitting in my dads old, gray pickup staring at the stars as he drove the highways back home. Tired from a day of stressful travel, when in previous hours I was on a leash led by my mom in the airport. My dad has always created a sanctuary everywhere he went, which was a vital skill growing up with a homeless father. My parents began their long unpleasant divorce when I was two, whereas my dad was gifted a restraining order entering the house. I didn’t see him for months until he was granted permission to pick me up from preschool with a bottle of chocolate milk in his warm hands. Their divorce created a hole in everyone’s lives that each of us tried to fill separately. Mom was never home, working three jobs, going to school full time, and filling that hole with cigarettes, beer, and boyfriends. My sister filled it with endless sleepovers and friends, while I had three friends that I never saw outside of school.

Throughout my life, I’ve gone through everything that could possibly put me in emotional distress. I’ve been down a broken road with my father, the man I love so much I’ll make every excuse for whenever he disappoints me. I’ve encountered life where it’s not so enjoyable due to unacceptance and never ending judgment by my biggest critic, my mother, the woman whom I should feel most secure with. However despite the emotional mounds of pain these matters carry, I was able to lift the suffocating weight long enough to realize everything that burdened me, made me strong enough to have the will power to be independent and make life changing decisions on my own. At three years old, I met my biological father in a local supermarket’s parking lot; I remember vividly, the exact moment when this stranger held me in his broad, strong arms. I recall screaming at an immense volume not even laying eyes on him. All I had been focused on was finding my mother, the woman who played both parental roles in my life. This clearly justified the great state of confusion I was in in his presence since I wasn’t at all aware I even had a father. As I grew older, the visits to my father’s house became the norm and having begun developed a “best friend” type of relationship with him, I found myself crying more and more when I had to go back to my mom’s settlement. I never wanted to leave; my life became filled with happiness, filled with a father’s love I had never felt

Having my dad around all the time wasn’t my everyday routine. I’d see him once or twice a week so I wasn’t very much used to see him every day. One day I came home after school and he and my mom were on the balcony talking, the notice I was staring, they both looked at me and called for a family meeting by the tone of their voices I could tell there was