My Mother Essay

My ideals were shattered. I began to wonder if all relationships would eventually end up in divorce, if I had taken the feeling of family for granted, and if this would change who I was as a person.

If I have to pin-point exactly when all of this tension began within me, I would say the day my older sisters

I felt my heart getting tighten, my stomach starting to compress, my whole body was just full of sweat thinking to myself, “omg, how will I get home, what will happen if I’m lost and never find my way back, this is so annoying. what do I do?’’ My head was just spinning everywhere. Thinking of so many ways of how I can do this or get out of this absurd mess. I was 16 and already afraid. Meanwhile, as I was getting ready to go the city ON MY OWN, I was planning in my mind on what train to take to get there and come back home. After getting all dressed up and still having that anxious feeling in me, I walked downstairs, stopped, took a deep breath and told myself that I can do this. As I put my converse shoes on and walked towards the car, my sister tells me “just relax, you can do this.” While she is driving me to the ferry, I looked through the window and I saw hundreds of people walking and talking on their phone. Then all of a sudden, my pupils started to dilate after seeing this young lady with a blue striped dress who looks like around my age all by herself wandering around Staten Island. In my mind all of a sudden, I'm thinking this could be her first time exploring the island herself and she doesn’t seem afraid. So then I started to ask myself, “if she can do it, then why should I be afraid to go to the city on my own.” Finally, as I reached the ferry, my sister stops the car at the side of the curb and reminds me what

My earliest memories of reading start when my mom sent me to Christians studying school at six years old and the mentor would read out a handbook on heroes

But, that was short lived. I moved on with my life and it was not bad. I got to be at the front of the line and the front of the classroom. Life was great. Until my siblings started treating me different. My sister constantly told me that my mom treated me better because I was her kid. And my brother constantly told me that my “real dad left me because he didn’t want me.” I started to believe them and it made me grow a strong hatred for this man I had never known. I resented him. I hated him.

After months of chemo, my grandmother decided to have a mastectomy, a surgery to remove her breast to eliminate any chance of the cancer returning. The chemo had a lasting effect on my grandmother, she lost feeling in her figure tips, lost her taste for food and sunk into a deep depression. It still brings me to tears whenever I think about her struggle but with the help of family she made it through and is now a 10-year breast cancer survivor.

It didn’t take long though, for cancer to become a trip to the emergency room after my mom had severe back pain. Cancer was a pain, one that didn’t ever go away. Cancer was a heartless doctor explaining my mom’s expiration date. Two weeks, the doc said my mom would be lucky if she lived that long. Cancer had not only been in her breast, but in her bones, lung, liver, and skin as well. Cancer was a hospital room full of family. It was my mom with a huge smile plastered on her face despite hearing the horrid news. Cancer was her telling our entire family that it was the best day of her life, not because she was told she was going to die, but because she had her entire family there supporting her.

Instead, I remember telling tell my best friend & my husband, “It was weird. I think they expected me to flip out like I actually have breast cancer.

I started to feel something unusual. It was strange. I had never felt this way.

At the tender age of 5 years old when I lost my mother and brother during delivery, that

It was that frightful night in June when I saw my whole world crash beneath my feet. That car, as blue as the ocean, that call as unforgettable as the darkest moon, and my mom as beautiful as a flower. I do not know why It had to happen, but all I was concerned about was getting her back.

Since then, I read everything and anything I could get my hands on. There’s a contradiction that books present- they offer a reprieve from the word, WORD OR WORLD?and yet they are inherently relatable. I love that I can forget everything while reading- the

how much my family didn't believe in me. They criticized me for some wrong choices and

Most importantly, I became quintassential in my family’s grieving process. The loss of my mom hurt my whole family. Since my dad was the only

The pressure that was put on myself by not only everyone I knew, but also myself was profound. Then one day I went home and as soon as I walked through the door my brother