Advanced Essay #1: Loss

NTRODUCTION: My essay is centered around loss, I wanted to bring attention to the fact that loss is not something that you get over easily. I thought that a good way to do this in my scene of memory is to talk about a time I lost someone and how that affected me and how it still does. I am proud of how I framed my scene of memory and how I then tied that in with my development of larger issues. Overall I am proud of the fact that my essay had a nice flow and good transitions between the different parts. On my next paper, I would like to improve how I developed my larger ideas because I feel like I could have expanded on it more to really improve my essay.

Advanced Esasy #1: Loss

I remember the day that they told me, how the whole family was together; my brother sitting at the table with my sister. My parents standing up in front of the coach…I had just walked into my house, keys still dangling from my pocket, the house was quiet when I walked in, and my music was loud. I pulled my headphones out of my ears, music still playing, as I dropped my backpack onto the floor. I peeked into the family room and saw that everyone was there. I walked in and everyone looked up. My brother got up and just gave me a hug, as I looked over to my mom and saw that she was wiping tears from her eyes. My father reached across my sister to hand my mom a tissue. My sister glanced over to me and then continued to stare into the kitchen as if she had somewhere better that she wanted to be. Everything seemed wrong, nobody was acting like normal. I did not understand, I looked around the room, nothing was out of place, everyone was there, nobody was hurt, what could be wrong…All eyes were on me, then each other, my mom spoke first. “Mama…” she choked. My dad put his hand on her shoulder, as she started to cry again. He turned to me and said, “Grammie died last night.”

I looked down at the floor, then up at my mom, I knew this was harder for her than it was for me, she lost both of her parents, I am blessed enough to still have both of mine. I was ready to walk out, I was ready to go in my room and break something, I was ready to release all the anger that I had built up, I was mad at the world, mad at God, because I did not understand why this had happened. I did not understand why God would let something like this happen and why I could not prevent it, and why I did not expect it. I walked over to my mom and gave her a hug, I let her cry onto me, I just wanted to be there for everyone else, I knew that they all wanted to be there for me but I wanted to show them I was strong. When I got into my room, I shut the door, dropped to my knees and cried, I cried and cried and cried and just let everything out, and now sitting here in the same spot that I was when I first found out, tears are falling again.

I tried my best not to lose myself, I tried my best to come to terms with the fact that I could not take back what had just happened. This was not something that I expected. Eventually… yes I knew this would happen because nobody lives forever but I did not think it would be then. I didn’t think my whole world would explode, I figured it would happen when my world had already exploded but nothing ever happens how we expect it to. The day after I found out, I went to school, I did not want to let this stop me from continuing my normal routine, I even went to my volleyball game. I remember being on the bus crying, trying not to hide it so my teammates would not know, I did not want to burden them with my loss. I looked out the window hoping that if I pretended that everything was fine then it would go back to normal, but of course that never actually happened. It is almost a year later and I still have not come to terms with the fact that my grandma is no longer with us.

I guess that says something about how I deal with loss, about how we deal with loss. It is not something that is easy to accept or get over, in fact, some people never recover. I do not know if I ever will but what I do know is that things will never go back to the way they were, and that is something that we all have to accept. We can never truly grieve if we do not accept the fact that we can not go back and change what has happened. You have to move on, never forget the person you lost or how that made you feel but at some point, you have to continue on.