Personal Narrative : Life Without Memories

Put the gun down! Put the gun down! Pow Pow Pow. The gun shots cracked into the air as loud as thunder. One after another. We live day by day not knowing our end. In the blink of an eye our lives can be changed forever. Its life, yet even in knowing this we never expect tragedy to find us. We never expect it to affect our lives and the people we know and love. I’m going to share with you the day tragedy found my life.

I was incredibly excited. School was starting tomorrow. The first few days were just icebreakers, learning everyone’s names, blah blah blah. Then the real learning began. Of course, teachers started to write our lessons on the board. I started to notice a few changes in what I was seeing. The words they were writing were just...black lines! I didn’t pay much attention to it, I just asked my friends what the board said. As the year went on, it affected me more and more, especially in math. I saw a 2 as a 6, and and an A as an 8.

I think that my family realized that I had crossed the threshold between childhoods when I began to form my own opinions. This first took hold when I took part in poverty stimulation at my local shelter. I was giving a character and a story behind the card I was given; the story made me become emotionally attached to this name I had been assigned and the family in which I came from. The experience made me question the prejudice of the society I was living in. How many times had I avoided eye contact with the people on the side of the road begging for money? I began a long journey of soul searching and questioning the beliefs my parents had raised me on. My thoughts were continually brought back to a book by C.S Lewis, it was called Out of the Silent Planet; a character named Weston believed that individual human lives don’t matter, they must be sacrificed to save mankind.

Well this year was a hell of a year. I mean, i didn't pass any of the semesters but i did observe a ton of stuff that went on in the class. The class in general was pretty lit. Every day went by and i honestly did some work. The class was ready to learn as mrs g was ready to teach. I mean yea we had some days were we didn't want to learn anything and there were also days when mrs g didn't want to teach. But ima be honest, doing the work we did wasn't in my best interest. Most of the projects we did in class i worked on, but at the end i didn't end up liking how i did it so i wouldn't even bother turning anything in. like the obituary we had to write about ourselves. I liked the meaning behind this but honestly i didn't want to work on that because it just brought back memories of my friends that were killed.

I quickly swallowed my homemade authentic Indian food leftovers and gulped down my chocolate milk. Looking down at my watch that read 11:28am, I knew that I only had two minutes until my most favorite part of the day: recess. This particular day in 5th grade, I had run a lap around the playground before getting the rest of recess to myself. As I started walking for my warmup, another student ran up and said, “My parents said that your people caused 9/11.” Completely caught off guard, I held back the tears in my eyes and tried to shake off his comment. I had never encountered something like this.

am beset {long pause} How long will I let the pain and loss define my life? An enduring struggle of loss and gain A monumental achievement through the tangles of deeds But is left alone with silent words

My initial perceptions about the students of St. Angela were very stereotypical. Honestly, I expected those students to come from single parent backgrounds and come from a low income household. I expected to deal with students who live life in a survival type of manner. What I mean by survival type of manner is for one to be on defense seeing the type of the children are from the Austin area. Walking in to St. Angela I expected to deal with kids that didn’t listen and know respect for authority. I expected this due to my upbringing in the same neighborhood.

I sat there with my legs crossed for hours. The tingly numbness rose up from my toes to the top of my spine. Hours of nothingness. Hours of staring at a blank sheet of paper. Hours of complete and utter silence. Then, it began. My pencil, which was previously silent, began to speak. The shapes flowed out no real meaning. No sense just movement. I began to move my pencil with brisk movements. Soft and then brisk once more. Switching the colors once, twice, and then again. Shading, blending, redrawing, and repeat. Over and over again as the colors flowed out and told me something that I wasn't expecting, completion.

Some people are born with talents, others with brains, and some with beauty. However, I would like to think I was born with all the above, but most of all I was born with the innate gift of serving others. While growing up as a preacher’s kid, I witnessed my father help others by empowering them, motivating them, and praying for them. Observing how supportive my dad was of others I thought I want to do the same thing, but I knew I did not want to be a preacher. Growing up as a beautician’s daughter, I watched my mother improve others by building their self-esteem, being a listening ear, and sharing knowledge when necessary. I recall looking at my mother thinking I want to be that type of person when I grow up. I lacked the talents and creativity

Hailey G. is a five-year-old girl. She is the second of three girls; her older sister is 13 and her younger sister is 3. She is half-Dominican and half Colombian. Her mother is from Colombia and her father is from the Dominican Republic. She has traveled to Colombia two times and went to the Dominican Republic for the first time in December 2016. When she learned she was going to D.R. she was very excited. She said that she had never been there and was so happy to go visit Abuelita. I reminded her that I used to live in D.R. before I moved here to the United States. When she came back from vacation, she brought my assistant, and I a souvenir. I really love the souvenir and it reminded me when I lived back home. Her paternal grandmother comes

I cannot recall an instance in which Ely has not been by my side. The baby blue plush elephant takes me back to sketching masterpieces on the stark white kitchen walls using my 64 pack of Crayola crayons with a sharpener. She represented innocence in its entirety; I was her troublemaking best friend. My bright blue eyes mirrored her powder blue skin perfectly, and her yellow pajamas echoed my unruly golden mane of curls. Her design was based upon the drawings of the Beatles' John Lennon. Coincidentally, I've developed a passion for music and art as a form of self expression. We were an impeccable match.

Recalling a time when I observed a negative action and could of done something about it was probably back in middle school. This event was when one individual was bullying a kid and talking in a negative manner to this certain individual and this cause one person to flip over a desk, but I was just a witness I would have stopped this by notify someone or telling the person to stop or calm down.

It had been dark, and looking back at it, Magnolia could see how her intentions had easily been misinterpreted. After all, manipulating gigantic chunks of metal around a room with what appears to be a stick would be quite uncanny, especially for one who is not used to magic. -------------------------------------------------------------------

When discovering that I had an assignment that was going to compel a disconnect from my virtual world and telecommunications I was not mentally prepared or eager to accomplish it. When the my thirty-six-hour purge came to start, I turned my phone off and committed to fully disengage from all of my communications and braced myself. This was a disconnect from my world and the world that surrounded me. This began to leave me feeling bewildered and hollow.

Nothingness. It is what I believe becomes of us when we pass, and to be honest, it scares the shit out of me. I've always fantasized about leaving my mark on this world, leaving something behind that people will remember me by. As time has gone by, I have realized this was just the fantasy of some naive young man who will never do anything special with his life, much like 99% of the population.