You’re lying there, suffering, living a life of pain and agony. You see your friends and family around you, worried, in tears, after hearing about your misery. You have no control over your body, it isn’t responding to you, your inner workings are slowly, but consistently declining. There is no answer, no cure for your disease. Even when the time is good, life is a struggle.
After his mother's death he is forced to run away from his village or he could be killed by anyone. Running away gives him a chance to start over his life although it would be difficult. Crispin has been shunned by other people his whole life. He has had no other people beside his mother that he could ’trust’ and so as a result, he is afraid to ask for help and is terrified of most things. “It was always hard for me to look on others” (3).
My great-grandfather, was a hero because he fought in world war 2, after many other hardships in his life. A big reason for that statement as a hero is the reason stated prior to this. He wasn’t forced to fight, he signed up for it. Even though he lived in Italy, the tension in Germany in the mid 1930’s was too much for everyone, including his family. The issue was that they wanted to go to America, but they couldn’t afford the expenses of taking a boat to America.
Returning home from war is never an easy transition for a soldier, no soldier embodied that truth more than Norman Bowker. Bowker is a Vietnam War veteran from the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien who struggles with his life and mental health after the Vietnam War. Bowker is troubled by his memories- most specifically one memory- that he cannot forget or forgive himself for. Bowker was a man who had to fight for his life every day he was in Vietnam, there was always a chance the Viet Cong would attack. Bowker lost friends and lost fellow soldiers every day in Vietnam, he even lost his best friend to the war.
The worst part of my life was having to live with a different family. I had to go away for a couple years from my mom till she got better. My mom drank and fought with her husband. I left my parents and went to a new family in Gregory. My sister and I didn’t like being away from our mother, we felt lost and sad.
The hardest part about all this is thinking about how he won’t be here to watch me graduate, be at my wedding, or watch me live the rest of my life. I remember the day exactly that he died. My day had already been at the hospital, and I was sitting in science class when my mom asked if she could talk to me outside in the hallway. I got so nervous because I already knew he was in bad shape. All she told me was he wasn’t in good shape and my dad wanted her to go up there.
Perhaps I cried too much in the last weeks and there were no tears left. Even if I cannot cry anymore the bad feeling inside of me would stay and eat me up from within. I reminded my self-promise to get over my problems after Christmas. It did not work well. I was not the same person anymore but rather a wreck and a cover of myself.
Instead, I kept quiet and let the hour fade away until my husband took me home and started to beat me because I am just wasting money by never talking. I never could do right in his eyes. The house was never clean enough, the children never quite enough, and I never talked enough. Sometimes he would remind me of the days when I used to talk all the time. Acting like he cared, acting like he wished he could back to those days, the days when we weren’t married.
I had never been hit with news like that in my life. My emotions were flying around in my head. I was scared, anxious, and had no idea what was going to happen or if my mother was going to survive. While all this was happening; my father’s dad passed away, which put him over the edge. I look up to my dad; he has always been so strong for our family, but seeing him down and out like that scared me.
The next day I woke up on my old uncomfortable hospital bed. I sat up and saw the doctor standing next to me checking in on me to see if I am doing well. I can’t help but wonder if this was for nothing or if this was the best decision that I ever made. “Surgery went very well, you will need to have a few months of recovery and physical therapy.” I looked up and I saw Nana walk into my