Personal Narrative: A Step-Parent's Suicide

Growing up in Southeastern Kentucky, a kid doesn’t have many expectations from their parents, school teachers, or themselves. When a student walks by two teachers talking they say, “This group of 5th graders are the worst, every one of them are as dumb as a box of rocks.” This is the sad reality of what happened in my elementary school at Marie Roberts-Caney. Our school slogan is, “No student left behind.” Ever since 3rd grade I knew it was a bunch or bologna. Don’t get me wrong, I had great parents who cared about me, but they didn’t expect much from me. Neither of my parents attended college and I was afraid of it. Even as a young student, I knew I wasn’t the brightest kid in the classroom. Now that I look back, I realize how hard I worked

One morning I decided to check before class and hope that my day would not be ruined from there. Having been the only university I applied to at this time, there was nothing to fall back on. Logging in for the eleventh time in three days, the application looked as if there was an ‘add’ on it. Adjusting my eyes, it had read “Accept or Decline”. Getting chills from head to toe, I begin to read further down the page and noticed that I had been accepted to the School of Arts and Sciences. The first tear rushed down my face and it was in this moment that I knew I was happy and proud to say I was going to a school that had football, pride and a sense of

Today is the day that the winners are supposed to receive their letter of acceptance and the unfortunate ones receive their letter of rejection. I have been sitting on the porch all day waiting for the mail to be delivered with that last piece of hope riding in the wind. I can’t get this situation off my head. It is all over the news, it’s all over the school's gossip. You can’t go anywhere without protestors talking about unethical practices or satan’s work.

As the only oboe player in the 8th grade, my band teacher Ms. Vogel and all of my friends knew that acceptance was a guarantee. To my classmates, I timidly expressed skepticism but my flattering subconscious secretly knew that I would rip open the high school admissions letter and inside I would find a gargantuan OFFER. Doubt was nonexistent in my mind.

Her life changed so rapidly, going from outgoing to a shut-in, laughed at due to her iniquities. Not wanted to deal with the frustrations of public school, she decided to go to Lexington School for the Deaf. She exceled there (well rounded) and was valedictorian her last 2 years

Carolina Flores has had an extraordinary experience at Casco Bay High School. She had a passionate smile as she said, “I would redo my four years here again.” Her journey before a CBHS was different. Her 8th grade year everyone kept telling her only weird go to CBHS or it's a hard school. But her mother didn't wanted her to go to Deering High school because her older sister had a horrible experience at DHS. “My older sister didn't want me to same experience as she did in high school,” Carolina said. But right now she is so grateful and thankful for mother forcing her to go Casco. She learned how to come out of her comfort zone, for example, her biggest millstone was being a dj at her 10th grade year for the Halloween dance.

I had lost hope and started applying at other colleges. Thankfully, I was in the Oklahoma Promise program, which would allow me to attend any public university in Oklahoma tuition-free for up to four years. Even though this was an excellent opportunity, I was upset I would not be attending a college with a Christian atmosphere. Then, about two months later, I received a small letter from College of the Ozarks. I had heard accepted students received large packets, so I believed the small envelope confirmed what I had already known, I would not be attending the college of my dreams. I opened the letter and the first word, “Congratulations” made me jump with joy. I had never been more excited in my life; I immediately thanked God because I knew without Him intervening in my life I would have never been granted this amazing

Se told us her life story and about the choices she made in her life. She shared that her mother was an alcoholic and her parents were divorced. She said she used to always would hangout with the wrong crowd. One day however in home economics she decided to not do drugs with her friends and thats when her life started to change. She later left her mom and got ahold of her dad who helped fund her schooling at a privet catholic school only if she payed for half. After attending school she decided to go off to college were her prefacer later told her she could push to get her masters. Later she even got her doctorates. We then returned to our small group discussion we talked about what sort of choices we have had to make in college so far and how have they affected

I cannot believe I have made it this far this quickly. It feels like just yesterday when I was accepting my diploma from Mr. Salvatore, my middle school principal and crying while hugging friends who I knew would be attending a different high school than I. Then, on that hot September day, walking through what I thought must have been the biggest school in the state of New Jersey, I got lost, made new friends, and the thought of college was but a dwarfed blip on my radar, far, far away from the center of my mind. Subsequently, in tenth grade, Union High School became smaller and my excitement for graduation was planted by the upperclassmen’s conversations about the upcoming prom and graduation.

Never having the help, she needed and not having a proper role model made this transition worse. At the end of the year she decided she need to go back to the basics, she dropped out of the IB program for her sophomore year. Over the course of her sophomore year, she made connections with teachers, her counselor, and her CSU Trio Advisor which gave her hope and a goal for her future. Her Junior year came along where she was a part of concurrent enrollment classes, a leadership course, and a religious education mentor. At the end of her junior year, her parents had decided to move to Texas for personal and financial reasons. Not wanting to leave the opportunities she would get in Colorado she stayed behind for her future. Having difficulties living away from home, she focused on work and school. This allowed her to not want to wait until college to make a difference; with other students and staff, they began a mentoring program with middle schoolers at Lincoln, to help students just like her. Having the best grades in her education and the dedication to help others like her she decided the correct career for her would be as an educator, a mentor, a teacher for other students like

She has attended Catholic school her whole life. In her freshman year of High School, she said to me “I didn’t care about school,” so she slacked off a lot. During her sophomore year, she started to get her act together and started making straight A’s. She even joined the basketball team which she still enjoys today. Her Mother, who has influenced her through it all, has taught her everything she knows today.

e for a brighter future from inside a broken local middle school, where brutal fights occurred spontaneously and students casually cursed teachers. I knew that my local schools were dysfunctional—and I need to escape. I set my sights on Stuyvesant, and studied for its admissions exam for over a year, using borrowed books to prepare and the dark state of my school as motivation. It didn’t matter that Stuyvesant was 2 hours away and that I would need to wake at 5am every morning. It didn’t matter

Response: MHS express concerns of Myra being out of school and not getting the support needed to be successful. The school official

“My ex-girlfriend was taken away by the cop and taken to the local jail. My ex-girlfriend’s Dad showed up and I rode back with him to their house. Finally my parents came and picked me up. I went home and maybe got two hours of sleep, if you even call that sleep. The next morning, I went back to my ex-girlfriend’s house and she was later released from jail that day. For the longest time, we would just sit there in silence, because, what do you say? It was time to comfort one another. I not only felt bad about the whole situation, but I knew no one was going to believe me, us. Believe that a girl purposively jumped into the moving vehicle. I later learned that the girl who died had been suicidal. Earlier that day, before the accident,

My mom was spending lots of her time over at a friends house in 2013, because one of her best friends Jenyi, was diagnosed with cancer. This was tough for me. Not being able to see my mom as much and knowing that Jenyi was struggling. This helped me grow spiritually and emotionally. I learned to put my trust in God, and as a family we spent many nights in prayer, hoping God would heal her. He didn’t. Instead, he chose to take her home to heaven. We didn’t understand, we had lots of grief and pain. I miss Jenyi, but I learned that everything was going to be okay. That good things came from bad, and that God can use these things to change people. After Jenyi died, we had to continue life, so we did. Not much later, in Des Moines for Labor day, we went boating with my mom's side of the family.