My Experience In My Life

You ever sit there and get that weird feeling in your gut ? That feeling that something isn’t right ? Yeah it sucks waking up to that feeling and having it the whole day. It turns out something wasn’t right after all. As I was sitting in my chemistry class I get this text from my sister… It wasn’t your average text. It was a text that would make your heart drop down to your stomach. The text said “ hey dads in the hospital, I don’t know what’s wrong but Herman and Danielle are there already”. With just those words I felt my face get hot and my body to get weak. The reason it really worried was because my dad doesn’t like hospitals. He would only go if something was just too much for him to handle. So as I

I was awaken by my mothers frantic crying. Immediatly I broke down because I already knew what that meant. My grandpa was no longer living. We rushed to hospice were his cold lifeless body was still laying in the hospital bed. Walking into that room was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. The moment we stepped into the door our family members were all circled around the hospital bed and all that was heard was weeping and crying. My mother was clearly affected the most by his death because she was the definition of a daddy’s girl. When she saw him laying there she instantly brroke down and rushed to his bedside and began talking to him as if he was alive. I remember her repeadtly saying “ I love you Wedaddy”. The look on my mothers face broke my heart. She had always been the light in a dark room. She was always the person that found a way to put a smile on everyones face. I had never seen her like this and it frightened me. Looking at my garndpa lay there lifeless and realizing I would never be able to get one of his famous hugs hurt

One of the most nerve-racking moments of my life was when I found out my grandma had colon cancer. I knew something was wrong from the point she told me that something was upsetting her stomach. She finally went to the doctor and then had a CAT scan, which found nothing. Then she was taken to the hospital for a colonoscopy, and diagnosed with colon cancer. I couldn’t believe what was happening, I love my grandma so much and this really hit me hard.

My grandfather was in his house, not feeling very well due to a battle with pneumonia. He was in the quiet home by himself as a result of my grandmother being gone and busy. It was a peaceful afternoon and a normal day for all of us. All of a sudden, WHAM! He was starting to experience extreme chest pain. This had caused him to call her.

In the spring of my sophomore year in high school, my grandfather died. At the time, I was investing the majority of my time preparing for the CAHSEE and various other important presentations. I came as a shock when, in the middle of the night around three in the morning, we received a call and my father rushes our family to a hospital. When we learned that my grandfather had a heart attack, was comatose, and only being kept alive by life support, we were distraught. The doctor in charge explained the situation and told us that it was unlikely he would wake up. It was decided that it was time to let him pass on. Prior to that, we were given time to say final farewells. I watched as my cousins and sibling went forward to reassure our grandfather that they would be happy with life and that they would make him proud. After that, we left. The next month involved funeral services and the like. It was after the funeral that I began to take notice of quite a few issues I had.

After sitting down on the porch with coffee in hand, waves of nostalgia washed over me. Staring into my coffee, flashbacks ran through my mind. The old, yellow school bus rocked back and forth over the worn dirt path on its way to the orphanage that would be my home for the following week. The scolding South American sun beated down on the school bus as I began to question why I chose to spend my service requirement here. I tried to imagine the following week which would be wifi less, family-less, and air conditioning less. After a two hour bus ride, my team of 20 people and I arrived at Orphanage Emmanuel. Orientation and assignments filled the following hours until we all climbed onto our plastic mattresses and attempted to get some sleep.

“Are you excited for your trip?” my mom asked me. “I'm not sure,” I replied. I had never been on a school trip, and I wasn’t sure how it was going to be. Ten days spent in Greece, would be, to say the least, a bit of a stretch for my exhausted brain. I was fresh out of the eighth grade, the official worst year of my life to this date. I had asked myself over and over why I had chosen to go on this trip. I was tired, and wanted to just be alone for the next two months, but I knew that I had already committed to it. I tried telling myself that it would be a good experience, that I would fulfill my childhood dreams, but I didn't believe myself. My mom asked me why I wasn’t sure, but I said nothing more than “I don't know.” I was unsure of how to feel. How I should feel was clashing heads with how I did feel, and it was all too much to bear. I felt sick with guilt.

I have only one life and I will use every opportunity to be successful and accomplished anything that comes my way. Because in reality no one is actually perfect to begin with.

I lean against the hospital bed reflecting on my life and where it would now lead me. I have just overdosed on a painkiller and I thought my life was over- no hope, no friends, and most certainly, no support. Or at least that is what it felt like. I was at a time of my life where constant bullying was occurring and being in a small school at the time, there was no place to escape. In my mind, I thought the only way out was to vanish from this world completely and so I snooped around for a bottle of pain killers and took the whole bottle.

On the night of April 7, 1997, my seven-year-old body flew from the backseat of a Nissan Sentra and crashed through the front passenger window onto the roadway of Old Town, Staten Island. I woke up on a hospital stretcher in pain and perplexed. My eyes were filled with shattered glass. I had no mobility in either of my arms; my right arm was wrapped in gauze and plaster; and my left arm had an IV in it. Two days later I was informed of the full extent of my injuries. I shouted at my nurse, “But how will I eat, write, shower, and how will I use the bathroom? What about my hair? How will I put on my clothes?

Blood poured out onto the shower floor, mixing with the water to spiral down the drain. I stared at the large amounts of blood, shocked to realize it was streaming out of ME. It was not long before I screamed for my parents. The definition of “death-defying” experience varies depending on the person and the situation. To this day, I have yet to live through an actual one, however, for a few minutes when I was seven years old, I thought death could be right around the corner. This experience changed my personal worldview. I saw the world more carefully from then on out, specifically the soap dish in showers. I also felt mentally and physically tougher, having survived what I perceived to be a “near death” experience. In the same token, however, I became prideful and jealous. No matter the actual severity of the event, a perceived “near death” experience will make an imprint on your mind and will change you as a person.

It's hard living alone, in a jungle, and your only resources are what you can find. Being a nomad is definitely not easy, especially when you live in a place like Nicaragua. I have no friends, no family, no home, no entertainment, and the only things I have is a compass, a tent, a water bottle, a knife, and a bag. Almost everything I once had, is now lost. More specifically, taken. Taken by the almighty ruler, petar. He and his slovakian army killed each and every single person in Nicaragua, including my family. I'm the only survivor, and if there are other people who are still alive, they’re probably in prison, getting ready to enter the gas chamber. I have never been so sad in my life, and petar is probably feeling the exact opposite. All the Slovakian wanted was power. I’m only sixteen years old, and I decided not to continue on in the pool of sadness that I'm in.

“I’m proud of you.” These are the words that keep me going. When I was left here, hint the sarcasm, I felt like I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t ready to grow up and face the world so quick when I still had so much to learn about myself. I was so enclosed with my family that the next couple days growing up wasn’t an option and I had to be careful. With all this Independence as an individual and not hide behind my family. By the time it came for the weekend I felt better about myself like I can do this and it gets easier. I had this new view on college because of the new friends that I met. When I’m around them I forget about missing home and my family. They are my second family who supports each other and don’t want to see them beating themselves up. We meet up and do thing on and off campus, study as a group and eat together. Without them I would just be in my dorm all the time. Being here by myself I have more freedom than I did at home. I wasn’t being watched over like a hawk 24/7.

I was 16 when it happened. It was a surprisingly warm December day in 1994 in Bangladesh. It was already past dinnertime. My dad ran a little bit late from work, since so many people were out enjoying the nice weather. My dad owned a tailoring shop downtown, and it was always pretty busy, since most Bengali stores at the time didn’t sell stitched clothes. My mom and my three siblings went ahead and ate, but I waited for Dad to come home. We always ate dinner together, no matter how late he came back. When he finally came back, it was almost 9:00, so we decided that we were going to eat dinner while watching TV. We watched Looney Toons together. I asked him if he had any wacky customers at the shop. He jokingly tried to convince me to switch from pursuing biology to English. It was running gag between us. Anyone who knew me knew I sucked at English. After he finished eating, he got up to take his plate to the kitchen. I was finishing up my food when I heard a crash come from the kitchen. I ran to the kitchen and I saw my dad collapsed on the floor. I yelled for my mom. We quickly rushed him to the hospital. The quickest way to the hospital was by rickshaw. My mom, my brother, and I kept yelling at the rider to go faster. We finally got to the hospital only to realize that he was gone. He had died of an ischemic stroke on the way there.

As time goes on, we have the fondest of memories, good and bad. As for now they are just mere images, far in the distance with little glimpses of what we did when we were younger. As for me, I have a good family who cares for me, we went to many places such as Washington D.C. where my family and I had to walk in the blazing sun, a little bit more walking would of killed us. I also had good friends who would help me along the way. Showing me how to live my life and showing me things I had not seen before. As time goes on, it is important why we have these types of memories, and that is because we made the choice to have those types of experiences. Not some so called fate, but the experiences we make is due to the free will we have over the situation. That is why every story is so unique, because trying to replicate would be so hard to do.