Death was something new to me. I had never had to deal with someone close to me passing. I had experienced my friends losing a grandparent or a distant relative, but it had not affected me terribly much. I always considered myself to be lucky I had not suffered through the pain of losing someone brought. When this finally occurred, the first challenge was presented to me: accepting the fact I didn’t have a father anymore.…
Hearing my sister say “dad” and “heart attack” in the same sentence was all that it took to make it seem like my world stopped. Although at that moment we were under the impression he was still alive, I had a knot in my stomach that felt like I knew that wasn’t true. The drive from color guard practice to the hospital was a blur. All I remember was telling the service desk my last name before being escorted to a personal waiting room followed by the doctor who informed me that my dad had died.…
Andrew Carnegie is a perfect example of someone who worked for everything he had. He built his fame, fortune, and respectable reputation, from the ground up. He did so by his very successful steel business that literally blew other competitors out of the industry. However, many will argue that Carnegie was a “Robber Barron” because of his smart risky actions that include buying out everything that was needed for the industry which lead to a monopoly in the steel industry. Andrew Carnegie worked from being a migrant immigrant to a very successful man. This shows pure dedication to one’s occupation. Andrew Carnegie was a captain of industry because he believed that no man should die a rich man and followed the philosophy of philanthropy. With this belief, he plowed his wealth back into society by building public libraries, donating to collages, forming the Carnegie Endowment for International peace, and much more. Carnegie was the richest man alive at one point and gave 90 percent of his wealth away. There is not a single argument that can credibly prove Andrew Carnegie as a Robber Barron.…
I don’t like remembering the next few days. There were too many tears involved. One too many times in my life I’ve had to stand at an alter and give a eulogy. One too many times in my life I’ve had to look into the faces of the people I love and remind them of the better days of the beloved. One way too many times.…
As I was growing up I would always try to break free, from all the violence going on around my neighborhood. After graduating elementary school, I saw the world entirely differently. Entering my sophomore year in high school I began to get caught up with the kids outside of my school. My grandmother came from Dominican Republic in 2010. She was my back bone for my motivation. The relationship I had with her was unbreakable. In 2012 all that was taken away from me when she passed away. I was so devastated that I thought my world ended I was in disbelief. The world took a pause until I took it all in. I was in such pain that all I wanted to do was hurt everyone else around me. I felt empty. A black cloud was over me that day and for the rest of the year. I decided to stop attending school. I found no reason to keep going on in life anymore. This was the worst low imaginable; now I needed time to figure myself out without my grandma.…
It was October third a thursday night after our freshman football game. Lying in bed, not able to sleep, I hear the doorbell ring and parents going down stairs. Peaking my head around the corner to see who it could be at 11:03 pm. Just to see two state troopers standing in the doorway. My mind and heart automatically beginning to race, and my heart instantly dropping. To hear “I'm sorry to say but your son has been killed in a car accident in Ames Iowa”. A devastating night I will remember forever. With emotions being spilled and tears being shed it’s hard to stay strong for each other in that specific moment, but I know that I have to be there…
I first heard the horrific news in the middle of summer. That day, my dad was driving me over to my mom’s house, and I knew something was wrong when he told me with a deliberate expression, “Your mom was coming home early from her work trip this week due to a family emergency.” As a result, I became very concerned to hear what has happened. Once we arrived at my mom’s house I quickly noticed tears in her eyes. She sat my sisters and I down on the couch, and told us sorrowfully, “Your Uncle Mike passed away this morning. He woke up today, and couldn’t breathe, so Aunt Sue took him to the emergency room, and they couldn’t keep him alive.”…
It was Monday, May 30th, 2011. My family was driving home from a hotel we were staying at in Virginia, after going to Kings Dominion for my birthday day the day before. On the way home, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast. During our meal, we got a call from my aunt telling us that my uncle, my mother’s brother, was in the hospital. Only a few days before he had moved back to Guatemala without saying goodbye to me. Once we were back on the road, my mother continued to get phone calls updating us about what was happening down there, as each call came through we all became more and more anxious wait for the answer. Then it came it just wasn't the answer we were hoping for, my mother began pushing on the walls of the car as if they were…
At just about the hour when my father died, soon after dawn one February morning when ice coated the windows like cataracts, I banged my thumb with a hammer. Naturally I swore at the hammers the reckless thing, and in the moment of swearing I thought of what my father would say: "If you'd try hitting the nail it would go in a whole lot faster. Don't you know your thumb's not as hard as that hammer?" We both were doing carpentry that day, but far apart. He was building cupboards at my brother's place in Oklahoma; I was at home in Indiana, putting up a wall in the basement to make a bedroom for my daughter. By the time my mother called with news of his death--the long distance wires whittling her voice until it seemed too thin to bear the weight of what she had to say-my thumb was swollen. A week or so later a white scar in the shape of a crescent moon began to show above the cuticle and month by month it rose across the pink sky of my thumbnail. It took the better part of a year for the scar to disappear, and every time I noticed it I thought of my father.…
I was working on a school project when I got a call from my dad saying he was coming right away to come pick me up, I remember the sheathing anger I felt arguing that no he wasn’t going to pick me up that I really needed to finish this school project. I still shake my head in dismay knowing the fact I in fact didn’t need to finish the project I just wanted to hang out with my friends. I can’t pretend that I didn’t sulk my way to my dad’s waiting vehicle that I looked at him with a scowl across my face. Nor can I wipe away from my memory the words he said next “Your sister is in the hospital, she’s lost her baby and she’s asking for you.” This complete wash of emotion that came over me the shame the concern I was mortified with myself. How could I have been so mad about my importance when my sister had just faced a devastating event? Looking up and saying “Take me to her.”…
My story begins at just the age of 8, we just had moved to a South Texas town, Kountze, this town had about 2,000 to 3,000 people residing in it. My parents had decided this was the perfect place to raise me and my brother who is two years older than me. I didn’t understand much then, but from what I can remember the only problems I had was what flavor of ice cream I wanted when my father took me to the ice cream shop and which Disney channel show was on. But then, as I thought things were just fine, On one summer night I heard noises in my parents’ bedroom and I overheard my favorite hero crying in the bedroom and saying he needed to tell us something terrible had happened. As he sat me down on his lap and told me that grandfather had passed away. My grandfather had been diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after he came from India to America too visit us. My father had to take him back to India when they found out he diagnosed. I sat there not understanding what had happened and hearing my hero in tears for the first time. It was one of first of many forms of tragedy I have had to witness as I thought nothing could shake my father but at this moment I realized I was wrong and got scared, this moment had changed my whole…
I was so upset with my mother, that I didn't say a word to her and just went straight to bed on the couch, due to not having a room anymore. The next morning when i woke up, my phone and tablet were lost. I couldn’t find them, i thought i had left them in my dad’s truck, but my mom walked out of her room and said “I had taken your phone and tablet, i think it is best if you don't have them for a couple days”. The next few days i had stayed inside and didn't talk to anyone, i wouldn’t eat,drink, or sleep. My mom made me go to the doctors, and they had diagnosed me with depression. My mom had set up an appointment with an counselor. She had told the counselor that she needed her to explain to me why she did what she had done. I was stuck going to the counselor for a couple. She also requested that I and returned back to school and continue on with my life. One day after my appointment, I was waiting for my mom to come pick me up and stepped out of the car was my dad, it was the happiest day of my life. I thought that he was here to stay for good, but he was only here for a short visit. It was the best week ever, I hadn't seen him for 4…
The trip home seemed like the longest ever. We walked into the house to find my dad with the TV on. More smoke, more fog, more running to save lives. I remember sitting in front of the TV set, watching aghast and scared. The footage went on forever. Finally my parents calmed me down and convinced me a good nights’ rest would do me some good. I lay in bed racking my brain to figure out why someone would do something so horrible. The next day, we didn’t have to go to school, so I stayed home with my mom. I kept asking her over and over again why this happened, but whatever explanation she gave me, I still couldn’t completely put it all…
About a year or so ago, my parents sat my brother and I down looking really solemn. At first I thought that my cat had been killed by a coyote or something (I’m slightly paranoid about my cat). Then I realized that I hadn’t seen my dog yet and normally he comes to greet us when we get home from school. He had been having some problems recently with odd possible cancer lumps and limping. I thought that he had been put down or something. Neither one happened. Then I remembered that my parents were always fighting, and that my dad and I would constantly fight too. This was it. Dad was moving out. Dad started speaking first. He said that he was moving out. My brother burst into tears. I merely sat there. I expected this. I had been expecting this…
for my own opinions about the meaning of home. I’ve been to a total of…