Walking Through Thorns

BY JOHANA PENALOZA

The sun arose from slumber, and the sky cleared from the pitch-black darkness. Birds were flying in bundles chirping their way around the city, and a burst of light was shining through the peeps of gray clouds, Monday morning.  

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God, I hated Mondays, but out of all other Mondays, I had a stabbing feeling in my chest that today was going to be far worse than my previous Mondays. But for the life of me, I was not aware of the reason why. My morning was just an ordinary Monday morning. I sat at my dining room table wearing a raggedy t-shirt with some ripped jeans while eating Captain Crunch cereal for breakfast. The strawberry-flavored Chapstick on my lips was smothered in almond milk. I grabbed my Black Jansport backpack and headed out the creaking door. The ground remained drenched from last night's rain shower. But it wasn't over yet; I noticed gray clouds shadowing my body as if tears were about to drop from the sky. I hurried and crawled my way into my mamá's truck and blasted the radio. 

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Tunes like "Lovely" by Billie Eilish came on the radio, and I thought to myself, "Wow, this gloomy weather has everyone feeling some type of way." On the brief ride to school, I saw a few students walking on the sidewalk with tense shoulders directed towards these two seniors; you could not deny the negative tension. They shoved each other and threw fists in the air. Before you knew it, splat goes their blood on the gray cement. Rumors said those two seniors owed money for indulging in bags of crack. Many people got consumed by the pressure of becoming an "adult," so they conveyed their fear by burying themselves in the use of drugs as an outlet to "let go." Since they could not control life, they believed this toxic act would grant them power and control. I mean, I didn't blame them; life could feel like hell on Earth even without the responsibilities of entering the presence of adulthood. So, it was far from abnormal for those who got cold feet about adulthood and released their tension like they were from the "hood," which they were.  

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"Que tengas un buen día mija," mamá shouted while I was getting out of her white truck.  

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 "Gracias mamá. Te miro mañana, " I responded.  

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I said that I'd see her tomorrow because ever since my papá became ill, my sister usually picked me up from school, so my mamá spent the day and night with him either in the hospital or at the rehabilitation center. I spent most of my junior and senior years home alone. 

Foothill High School, in Bakersfield, California was stereotyped as "ghetto" for being on the east side. I entered the academic community as construction workers invaded my campus. I nearly tripped over one of their tools as I walked towards the classroom. I looked around me in the hope that no one saw my little embarrassing moment, but there he was, Brackett, huddled up against the wall, laughing, in fear of spilling his hot coffee. Brackett was the type of teacher who made you laugh even if you were on your period. I shook off my humiliation and walked towards the man. 

"Good morning, Brackett!" I shouted.  

"How are you functioning? It's way too early for you to be at school," he sarcastically responded.  

"AP testing," I said in a shaky voice.

 You could sense my anxiety from across campus, and he noted.  

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"Johana. You'll be fine, even if you don't pass, scores don't define your intelligence," he exclaimed while laying a hand on my shoulder as a way to calm my nerves. 

"You're right." I nodded while giving him a smirk.  

I looked at my phone and realized that it was almost time to begin the exam.  

"I gotta go, Brackett, see you tomorrow in 4th," I said nervously.  

"Bye, kiddo," he responded.  

I headed towards the classroom, where we placed our belongings onto the musty floor. All the AP students walked together to a different class located on the other side of campus to begin preparing for the exams. Inside room I-12, everyone claimed their seat once entering the chilly room. I picked a chair that was placed in the back corner of the class and sat irritated, listening to all the chatter. I did not have many friends in my AP courses since all my friends just cared about meeting the bare minimum of the graduation requirements. The lack of friendly faces made me feel uneasy while I patiently sat at my desk, waiting for the exam that caused my stress levels to rise. After a short period remaining, the instructor began reading the instructions.  

"It's time to show them what you are capable of," I thought to myself while slowly breathing.  

While taking the exam, I lacked focus. I had a sense that something was off but didn't know what. I kept staring at the clock and listening to the student's heavy breathing; I felt myself drifting away. The problems and prompts were blurry to me.  

"20 minutes left!" shouted the instructor.  

I was startled by his aggressive tone. I looked around me, and everyone seemed focused, but I couldn't. Before I knew it, that exam came to an end.  

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"Pencils down!" The instructor exclaimed.  

Part of me was disappointed, but I was also relieved that it was all over.  

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I know I didn't pass, but I looked around me and couldn't help but smile. The Dean of the School burst through the door when entering the classroom; he looked around the class with a face of pity.  

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"Johana Penaloza, come with me," he said in a stern, monotone voice.  

My smile turned into a frown within seconds. I knew what everyone was thinking: "Johana's in trouble." But with my papá's illness, I knew it was a family matter. I just assumed that he reentered as a patient at our local hospital again; I was wrong.  

I walked with the Dean in pure silence at a fast rate; my short legs were struggling to keep up. I felt like a prisoner, as he ignored me while he mentioned in his walkie-talkie, "Yeah I have her," in a soft voice. 

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His tone of voice aroused panic. I was confused and unaware of what was going on.

I grabbed my belongings from the other class and turned on my phone. I saw 20 notifications from my family, messages like:

"pick up your phone; something happened to dad."

"Johana, hurry up."

"We need to talk."

I realized that it was more than just "reentering our local hospital," but I didn't want to accept the inevitable. I was in denial and had the sudden urge to vomit. The dean was directing me towards my brother's girlfriend. 

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"Don't worry, I didn't tell her," he assured her before leaving us.  

"Did you get our messages?" she said softly. 

"Yes," I responded. 

 "So, did you connect the pieces and figure out what had happened?" she asked while looking at me with pity.  

"He died," I said while speed walking to her car. 

I saw her gray Toyota parked in our school's parking lot. We got in and drove over the speed limit, heading towards San Joaquin Hospital. Throughout the whole car ride, I saw blurs, and my surroundings became silent; I was out of touch with reality. 

We arrived at the hospital. I ran to room 602 and ignored all the ugly stares that were facing my way. I waited impatiently for the elevator doors to open widely and debated about taking the six flights of stairs. 

"Screw this," I said while turning around. 

"It's only going to take longer if you run, wait," my brother’s girlfriend told me while gripping tightly onto my wrist.  

I pulled away and waited. All you could hear is the noise of my foot tapping on the dirty floor.  

"Ding," the elevator opened; people rushed out. I stood irritated, waiting for the herd of people to get out of my way, I pushed my way through and rapidly glided my thumb onto the number six button. As we rose levels, my heart dropped. I anxiously left the tightened space and went on a search for room 602.  

"Where's room 602?" I asked the first nurse I saw. 

"Behind you," she responded in a soft voice.  

I took a deep breath and walked in. I could feel tender, watery eyes staring at me. I felt the tension of the room drowning me. The first person that I made eye contact with was mamá. Seeing my face made her want to cry even more. I felt like I ripped her heart wide open just by being in the same room as her.  

I looked to my left and saw papá lying on his death bed facing upward towards heaven. He looked pale as a vampire with his mouth open and covered in blood from the tube that punctured his lung. I walked to him and felt my hand touch his ice-cold face. It wasn't until then when my mind became flooded with negative thoughts that made my heart crumble into 1000 pieces. Selfish thoughts lingered through my mind. 

"He won't see me graduate high school, or go to college, nor walk me down the aisle or meet my children," I thought to myself while trying to hold myself together. But I couldn't handle the heartache; I dropped to my knees and burst into tears. Mamá grabbed me to feel her warmth, but all I felt was a cold, empty void. 

My papá became ill during my junior year of high school. That poor man suffered from an array of strokes which affected his nervous system. It began with one.  

Doctors said, "Suffering from a stroke is reasonable, especially for a man his age. Now is a perfect time to go through it." 

The first didn't affect him much until the second one came, then the third, then the fourth. The transition was hard to process; in reality, it was a slow death, like a ticking bomb waiting to blow. He often lost his train of thought, and memories became forgotten. He became physically weak and lost his ability to move; he couldn't even grab a dining utensil on his own. Mamá would cook for him because she remembered how much he would gag from the smell of the cafeteria food from the hospital or rehabilitation center. My papá felt alone and hated how the nurses treated the elders, so he would beg mamá to stay with him day and night.  

I was worried about the health of my papá, but I was also concerned about my mamá. She was delicate, emotionally and physically. I didn't want to lose them both. I tried my best to help; I would go to school, go to golf practice, heat some frozen food, or beg my sister to buy me fast food. Then I would come home and clean, do homework, then visit my dad and give him company while mamá got some rest. I would feed him, or fond over memories. I helped him with his exercises, which he hated because I would push him to reach his full potential. 

"Estas loca," he would yell when doing leg workouts. 

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On sunny days I would take him on a stroll in the garden and gaze at plants together since that was our thing. I would take him to the game room and play dominoes with the other elders in which he would sometimes get angry because he claimed that some of them cheat. 

I would laugh and say, "Like mamá."  

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We would play together in the corner. He taught me the game when I was a freshman in high school, and since he had forgotten how to play, I showed him like how he taught me. Playing dominoes was also our "thing"; we had many "things." 

 He hated being ill and vulnerable. He became depressed, and when his family came to visit, he would shun them out.  

He would repeatedly say, "I want to die. I've fallen in a pit, left here to rot."  

Everyone who knew my papá was shocked when they heard the news. Spiraling questions like "How is this possible if he was such a healthy, active man?" lingered through their mind.  

The thing about death was that it waits for no one. Although we had faith that somehow papá would miraculously get better, we had let ourselves fall into a pit of our own, a "pit of disappointment." He held onto our lives for a year and a half, but he slowly learned to let go.    

I sat in the waiting room looking down on the floor, longing for the good times when we would cut flowers and play dominoes together. My mamá came out to see how I was holding up; I was no longer crying. I saw how devastated my family was and felt the urge to hold myself together while remaining calm in the chaos. I tried to convert my negative thoughts into positivity. I was continually reminding myself that everything will be okay and that he’s finally resting in heaven with grandma. I kept telling myself that we have to cope with the pain, so he doesn’t need to anymore. I emailed all my teachers and my guidance counselor about the situation and asked to excuse me for a week. I told them not to tell anyone about my papa’s death, to avoid any pity that will cause me to break down at school. And if my friends asked about me, to tell them that I’m sick. I wanted to end my senior year as normal as possible. I didn’t want anything to change. I craved a place for normality, especially since my home was chaotic as it was. I didn’t want to show my pain to anyone.  

When organizing the funeral with mamá, I was angry. Why did we have to pick the flowers and a casket? Some people die at 90, why did he have to die at 60?  

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Mamá cried herself to sleep every night for a month. She continuously talked to papà by looking at photos of him.  

Before leaving the house, she would say, “Adios mi amor, te miro en la tarde.”  

She would cook his favorite Mexican dishes, such as enchiladas, molé, or pozole. These daily routines helped her cope. 

 I had always been a happy girl, so when some students noticed that my everyday smile turned into a frown, they began asking questions. 

 "Are you okay?" they would ask every hour.  

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"It looks like you can use a night out, there's a party downtown," a boy named, Eddie said. "Girls are free, but guys have to pay $2. There's going to be booze and weed."

I thought it would be fun, and they were right, I needed a distraction. 

I came home from golf practice and took a steaming hot shower, brushed my hair, and put on a tight black dress. Eddie picked me up in his matte black jeep.

Eddie was the guy all the girls fawned over. I enjoyed being around a guy who made other girls go wild.  

"Jo, wanna take a hit from my pen?" he asked.  

I smiled and said, "No, I'm okay." 

We arrived at the party, and everyone stared. I guess they thought we looked good together. Eddie got us red cups filled with liquor. I took a sip and felt like it was poison. I would pretend as if I were drinking the entire thing, but when he would quickly go say hi to one of his friends, I would go to the kitchen and pour the liquor down the sink. Hours flew by, and Eddie was drunk. He could barely walk without his arms wrapped around his friends. 

I went up to him and asked if someone sober could drive us since I didn't have my license. He said we could sleep upstairs, so I followed him. We shared the bed, and he leaned in for a kiss. I pushed him away, but he stubbornly reached for another. The odor of his intoxicated breath made me nauseous. I quickly got out of bed and asked my sister to pick me up.  

On the way home, I kept thinking to myself, "Why did I go out tonight and hang out with people I usually don't affiliate myself with? Why did I get involved with drugs, alcohol, and parties? Or hang with boys that wanted to take advantage of me?" 

That night, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't bury myself in bad habits, and that I wouldn't use my papá's death as an excuse to make bad decisions that will numb the pain. I decided to use that pain and convert it into a drive. When my papá became ill, my grades hit rock bottom; I began distracting myself by occupying myself with schoolwork. My grades went up drastically. I started dancing when I felt sad and talking to my mamá about papá to feel like he was still with us. I avoided any temptations that would drag me down. My papá was dead. The temptations weren't going to bring him back. My papá would've wanted me to be successful in everything I did, so I did my best not to disappoint him. The traumatic experience I faced granted me the strength and power to continue living for him.