My Most Important Life Lesson

In life, people are constantly learning, whether it's from school or mistakes we have made or others around them and they mistakes they have made. Despite the life lessons you may learn in high school or from your elders, some of the most important ones can sometimes come in the moments you least expect it. How do I know this? Well, I've experienced it.

I was five years old, my dad passed away. It wasn’t the easiest or expected event to happen to my family. When my dad was here, he was the life of the party along with his brother. When he was around, everything was fun and life was exciting. You aways found yourself laughing around him, but after he died it became hard to find anything funny, or fun. To put it this way, when my dad was here, it was always sunny and bright, and after he died it was foggy and gloomy and depressing and I truly believe that it was the moment things started to go wrong in family. Most of the time, since I was the happy one, I never liked my family seeing me cry, especially my mom because she was the one who tried to look like she OK when she was breaking down. I felt like I had to be the strong one. And all those times I would cry by myself in my room because I felt that I didn’t have someone to be strong for me.

Of course I learned this verse when I was much older, it became comforting. I remember how mad I used to be at my mom because after he passed I always thought if only I saw him more because the last time I had seen my dad was one or two weeks before he died. But as I got older I realized that it was my dad's choice for my brothers and I to not see him. My dad was an optimist and he always wanted us to see him healthy and goofy and not in a hospital bed. My dad always taught my brothers and I to look at life in the best way, to never see the ugly, unless needed to.

For the past 13 years, my mom has had to do the job of two parents. She does everything for us, and instead of going to bed early, she is up until 3 AM picking up my brother from work or worrying if he gets home safe and that he doesn't crash her car. But she is the one who holds us up, and watches over us no matter how old we become.

You might now see it now or think that life is unfair, that certain people in your lives shouldn't be there or wish it could be anybody but them, but these people are in your life for a reason. Certain things happen for a reason because they are the tools to help you see and learn things about yourself that you weren't aware of before. I would question why my dad died, but over time I learned that my dad dying helped me appreciate those close to me more. My mom being the way she is helped to me see that there are people there beside you guiding you when you think you are at a dead end and helping you even when you don't want it. I learned that working hard for what you want pays off, and that it's good to laugh in times of trouble. You learn something from family every day and while sometimes you don’t like to admit it, they are going to be the best thing that's ever happened to you, through the good and the bad, because family is forever.