Surviving the Inevitable

While reading the memoir, Unremarried Widow, I found myself relating to the pain that Henderson endured. I too have lost a significant person in my life. The loss may not have been the love of my life, but it was the first man who loved me, my father. My "Papa" became ill during my junior year of high school. He suffered from an array of strokes in which drastically affected his nervous system. The transition was hard to process; in reality, it was a slow death, like a ticking bomb waiting to erupt. He often lost his train of thought, and memories became forgotten. Papa lost his ability to physically move; even walking to the bathroom was challenging. Everyone who knew my father was shocked, spiraling questions like, "How is this possible if he was such a healthy, active man?" lingered through their mind. The thing about death is that it waits for no one, although we had faith that somehow Papa would miraculously get better, we just let ourselves fall into a pit of disappointment. He held onto our lives for a year and a half, but he slowly let go and passed away during my senior year of high school due to internal bleeding in the brain. I was taking an AP exam when I heard the unimaginable; all I remembered was the look of pity on my dean's face. I turned on my phone and saw 20 notifications from my family, such as "pick up your phone; something happened to dad." "Johana, hurry up," "We need to talk." I had an idea of what had happened, but I didn't want to accept the inevitable. I was in denial and had the sudden urge to vomit. When going home, I saw blurs, and my surroundings became silent, I was out of touch with reality.

I got to the hospital and saw my father lying on the hospital bed; all I felt was guilt clinching onto my shoulders. I felt awful for not visiting my father as much as I should have, for not exercising with him, for not helping him learn to be optimistic. I felt as if I have done more than maybe I could have helped prevent his death. From there on forward, my life shifted. I went from being the captain of the dance team who gets good grades and is considered to be "popular" to the girl who looks like she just rolled off her bed to go to school. I reeked of depression. Although I wore a mask that stated, "I'm fine," I felt the urge to carry the sorrows for both my mom and me. Since I'm the "baby" who still lives with her, I am all that she has left. I had to be strong for both of us. Everyone was surprised at how I was holding myself together at such a young age, but little did they know that I wanted to fall to the ground and cry a river to let all my pain flow out of me. I realized not to be too hard on myself because I cannot prevent the inevitable. I did not have magical powers to prevent his death. Even if I did, I learned that one could not outdo the course of nature. I learned to find strength through adversity to help my family and I find ways to move forward, instead of giving in into the temptation of finding an easily accessible outlet to escape reality, such as drugs, alcohol, partying. Rather than make my Papa proud by continuing to improve on my self-being.

Even though I learned to accept reality, I would have liked the chance to have a proper "good-bye." In my memoir, I will be addressing different ways to face adversity and how one can learn to avoid temptations. When coming across a tragedy, people want an easy escape to avoid the downfalls of reality, especially young adults. These temptations include: turning to drugs and alcohol, self-harming, or the desire to find someone to leech onto for their attention despite their character. I want to create a sense of hope towards a brighter future and persuade my targeted audience to understand that pain is temporary. We can find different ways to cope without harming ourselves. However, as young adults tend to be stubborn, persuading my audience will not be easy. I am afraid that I will not be able to convey my message successfully and that I will not distinguish my innocent voice from my experienced voice. While I learned to overcome adversity, it might be challenging conveying my message and demonstrating the process.