How Shakir's Death Changed My Life

In 2013 there were a record high of 56 murders in my home city of Trenton, NJ. My great-grandmother lived until she was 102 years old, so at the time, my thirteen year old brain never thought death could impact my family. I walked around Trenton’s streets no matter the time of night, witnessed various fights, and occasional gun scares- but no matter how dangerous the situation became, I could never see the gravity of it, and it’s long-range impact on my life. I was oblivious to and failed to realize the dangers that surrounded me. The violence did nothing but make me lose all hope for Trenton, the amount of deaths never impacted me until my cousin Shakir was murdered, it was at that time that death made me grow up.
On Friday, July 12, 2013,
I saw the way Shakir lived his life, and how closely I was following in his footsteps. I saw that no matter what happened, I could no longer live so unaware and I needed change. Shakir made it to his junior year of high school and he’d always say, “I can’t wait to go to college, to start getting my life together”, and I would laugh. I always wondered why he would rather wait until college to get his life together. The more I tried to figure out his thought process the more irrelevant I found it. It did not matter why he wanted to wait a year to change his lifestyle, what mattered was that he saw a flaw in the way he was living, and regardless of his circumstances, regardless of the fact that he lost sight, he still had vision. Every day that I feel like giving up, or breaking down, I remember that no matter what my cousin went through in his life he had vision, he had faith and he wanted to
The reality of it all is, everyone will die- it is inevitable, but I am in control of how my story will be written. I realize that every day I live I am given a second chance to perfect my story, to make it as appealing as possible. I want to be remembered as a hard worker, a perseverer, and as a dedicated person. Despite my obstacles, I never gave up, and I never will -- so many times I wanted to end it all, to give up on everything, but I didn’t. Instead I used it as motivation to keep going. I have realized over the years that, things will never change, until I change it. So that is what I am doing, I am changing it. One step at a