Life changing journey

Experience and Situations we live each day are the ones that make up who we are. They define us and give us structures. Some more than others. There’s different kind of experiences we have. Some we don’t remember because they changed so little in our personality and some mark us forever. I’ve lived through a few experiences that have changed me, but there’s one that marked me forever.

On a Sunday morning my family and I were all together in the living room watching a movie. I was 14 years old and yet I felt like a still lived in a happy child’s world. I still remember that morning and everything felt so peaceful like we were all just enjoying sitting there as a family.

The phone rang and my step dad paused the movie while my mom answered the phone. Suddenly she started screaming and dropped the phone. We all asked her what was going on and she said something had happened to her dad but she couldn’t understand what. I remember a rushed upstairs to grab my phone to call my paternal grandfather because he used to live close by my mother’s Dad. I make the call and he answers with a sad tone. I didn’t even spoke when he says “I have to tell you something, but you have to take it easy”. Your grandfather hung himself.”

 It felt like the world just stop. While he’s telling me this over the phone I see my mom running upstairs to change and go over my grandfather’s house. I’m asking myself “How am I going to be the one to tell my mom her dad killed himself?”. I was still a little girl. I mean 14 years isn’t really nothing? My mom sees me holding my phone and she comes running to me and asks me “What happened?”. I try to talk but nothing comes out of my mouth. My mom loses patient and starts to shake me and I finally say it. My mom falls to the floor. It felt like I’ve crushed her heart.

This experience made me grow up. My mom went through a rough path. I had to help with my little sister, which she was only 3 years old, more than I should have. I learned that the world isn’t that perfect bubble I was living in. Bad things happen to good and bad people and we can’t prevent them from happening. We can only accept them and try to learn from them.