Personal Narrative: Ramon Vazquez

Many of times you don’t realize the impact you have on someone’s life until you reflect on it. My best friend, Ramon Vazquez, throughout the years has become one of the most important people in my life. We have gotten each other through some tough times and we continue to carry each other to the top.
During our junior year of high school, I noticed Ramon was acting strange and his perception on life was so negative. I did what any best friend would do at the time and tried cheering him up and asking him what was wrong. Unfortunately I didn’t receive a response for several months. I didn’t give up on him though; I continued to do everything possible to see my friend smile. Without his happiness, I wasn’t completely happy. Everyday during school I was with him, it was rare to see one of us without the other. After school, we would attend the same club meetings and I would wait until someone picked him up before I left home. As soon as I got home, I would text him and we would text all afternoon until we went to bed. I did this for several months and to my enjoyment I saw his morale improve. Obviously it wasn’t close to normal, but it was enough to at least see his smile for a moment.
It wasn’t until the end of our senior year that I knew what was wrong with him for so many months.
He had a private conversation with me one day and he began by saying thank you. He continued by apologizing, for several months he kept a secret from me. His mother was diagnosed with cancer and it had tremendous affect on his daily life. He was never able to find the words to tell me what was occurring, but he was grateful that I never left him alone. Even without knowledge of his mothers’ sickness, I was the most important factor that allowed him to continue fighting for the both of them. He finished by saying, “you’re the most important person in my life and without you I don’t know where I would be, thank you for being my
friend.” I might have not known exactly what I was doing, but unintentionally enough I was able to protect my best friend and get him through a tough time. It’s the simplicity of human emotion and interaction. We speak about successful people all the time and give them all the praise in the world, but we tend to forget what really matters. It’s not the amount of money you accumulate in your career or the people you know, but the way you treat people and the way you give back to those less fortunate is what’s really significant.
“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” –Albus Dumbledore