Personal Narrative: The Major Loss Of My Life

As the Frost Festival finally drew to a close, the excitement of the frost fae, both royal and non-royal, began to wane as the festivities and parties died down, and the frosty multicolored flags of the various frost fae Clans were taken down and folded neatly for storage until the next Festival. I’d been working as a Frost Guardian for over twelve hours protecting the princess of the Snowflake clan, and, even though I thought that I was going to be beyond exhausted and more than ready for bed, I still felt strangely wide awake and even a little buzzed with adrenaline, like I’d gotten energy from the remnants of the festivities that had happened around me and the fact that I was finally training in the real world as a Guardian.

I come across a rear projection TV on the side of the road one day, load it up, and take it home. I eagerly spend a good four hours stripping it down and saving as much as I can. I end up with a 48” fresnel lens, two hefty speakers, a couple large capacitors, three glass lenses, and a glass mirror. Left over is a box of electronic waste and the particle board skeleton of a TV. I take the electronics to my local electronics recycling center, and set the wooden frame on the curb. I took 70 lbs. of trash and turned it into 10 lbs. of treasure ripe for projects, 30 lbs. of recyclables that would have gone to a landfill, and 30 lbs. of refuse that I had fun

Having grown up in a time and within a society where the terms fail and lose are rarely spoken to children in any aspect of their lives, I generally considered myself a success in everything I did. I received medals, ribbons, certificates, awards, and trophies for academics, sports, and for just being a kid. So in my mind, for the majority of my life, I was unaware that I had failed or lost at anything. And having a father that is a U.S. Marine, failing and losing were not things that I wanted to tell him that I had done. Now that I am tasked to determine how I have grown from my failures, I realize that I have failed, that failure is not the end, and that I have excelled in several areas of my life due to what I have learned from those failures.

There’s a story that I always tell people about when I talk about how much I love helping people. As a kid, I have always wanted to be a superhero. Of course, every kid wanted that too, but I feel like I always took it more seriously than others. The story that I tell is when I saved my little sister’s life. It was a day at the pool, and we were so little even I did not know how to swim yet. Our caregiver was not watching and my little sister fell in the pool, I immediately dove in forgetting that I could not swim either, but that did not stop me. I think I was around 4 years old, I grabbed my sister and pushed her above my head so that she could breathe, while I was nearly drowning underneath her. Finally, our caregiver jumped in and saved the both of us,

There is one loss in my life that affected many aspects of my life for many years, the divorce of my parents. I was in barley entering the first grade and the tender age of five, soon to turn six, when my parents spent their last night as a married couple. I do not have many memories of my parents as a couple but I do remember the day my Daddy left. He was a policeman and I watched as his cruiser drove away from our family home. I remember my mom crying and not being willing to console me or explain to me what was happening. All I knew is there was a fight, my dad left, it seemed different than other times when he left, and my mom was crying. Everything about my life changed in the blink of a five year old’s eyes which is what makes this loss so significant in my life.

I have lost my grandpa and have not gotten over the idea of it. When I was in the sixth grade, my grandfather was very sick; he could barely walk. While my grandmother and some other family members went uptown for some household things, food, and medication, I was told to take care of him. Yet, I wanted to play with my friends outside. He told me to go ahead and play, but for some reason I just got mad and slammed the door and left. Around nighttime, I seen an ambulance pull up to my grandparents’ house.

The loss of my younger brother changed my life in ways that I couldn't have imagined at the time of his death, but I was bombarded with so many emotions and undertakings that deeply impaired my thought process.

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 wanted to tell my story about the traumatic experience that took place on October 30th, 2014. I had to face an obstacle that I thought was impossible. I soon found out it was not impossible but that it was possible just not going to be an easy task.

I’d had many mini-lifelines thrown my way, none turned out to be the life-altering, ground shaking beneath me, and gates to opening up “heaven”, though. To me, I’d blame it on the different ways I came off to strangers, depends on the day, I could be a multitude of characters, but never latch onto the following of others. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted my lifeline to latch onto, the problem was, I was like a fishing net with a gaping hole--incapable of doing such things. Then, the last person I expected to, stepped up and accepted the challenge.

My G.P.R. is 3.328 the G.P.R. is high enough to get into the colleges of my choice. I feel that it is not a very competitive score though. I have talked to my consoler and she was telling me that every tiny grade matters to move my G.P.R. up. I plan to try to get the best grade possible this semester in order to move my G.P.R. up. My guidance consoler informed me that I can move up tremendously in my class rank just by moving my G.P.R. up by decimals.

Experiencing loss is hopeless. I personally felt loss on the morning of February 4, 2010, when my father died from pancreatic cancer. After many years of surgeries, doctor appointments, chemotherapy, and fighting, the villains inside his body had ultimately won the battle. Entering through the tall glass doors of the hospital, I could see my mother walking down the hallway towards me. Although she tried to force a calming smile, her anxious expression and red puffy eyes filled me with panic. As she kneeled down to greet me with a hug, my brother immediately left my side to go to the ICU where my dad was being cared for. When I looked back at my mother, she began to smile through tears and guided me towards a gloomy room with numerous televisions and chairs. I climbed up onto one of the blue plastic cushions as my mother waited to tell me the worst news of my life.

I never knew much about death. I didn’t understand what happened to someone. It was like they just disappeared into thin air, never to be heard from again. Almost like a character in one of my mystery novels. Only this time, there was no group of brothers or a crime-solving girl to look for clues and solve the case. It was probably because no one close to me has died when I was old enough to remember it. To this day, I’ve still never lost anyone very close to me.

The year was 2001 and I had suffered a tragic accident that left me near the loss of my life. I was four at the time and had been playing in the neighborhood with some friends when all a sudden, BAM! I was thrown to the bottom of a sewer and left unconscious. Not knowing what to do, a couple of friends who saw the act take place rushed to get my dad across the street to help retrieve me. Once my dad got to the scene he plunged down into the filth of the sewer and pulled me out of it. While I was semi-conscious from being pulled out of the hole, I had blood coming profusely out of my mouth as I began to violently throw up, little did I know, I was having seizures and did not even know what was going on around me, where I was, or if I was going to live. I had to nearly be life flighted out of the scene of I had a high chance of extreme brain damage or even death because of the high amount of blood swelling in the frontal lobe of my head. Once the paramedics finally arrived my eyes were swollen shut

“after the death and loss of a child you have feelings of guilt – which are common but not always present — confront and admit them. Examine the reality of how your child died and your actual intentions and actions at the time. You may see your actions or reactions in a more positive light. Forgive yourself for being imperfect — you did and continue to do the best that you can. After the death and loss of a child one of the major obstacle parents experience in their return to the world of the living is their inability to accept pleasure — or acknowledging that it even exists. But happiness or enjoyment is one of the most important survival tools, even if for just a moment in your grief. It’s okay to laugh in the midst of tears, to smile at someone or something. You might feel that your laughter betrays your child’s memory, but you need to know you are not abandoning your grieving by enjoying yourself. The only way to survive bereavement is to step away from it occasionally” (Rev. Carlos Cancelado).