Personal Narrative Essay: Power Over Death

“JOE!, it’s time for you to leave for school!” hollered Joe's Mom from the kitchen. Joe opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. “Okay, okay, Mom I'll be down in a minute.” This was going to be his first day at his new highschool, without his friends that were still in Canada. Joe thought to himself, “I'm strong, I can do this.”

I was pulled in two directions when I was young. At age five, I joined a Chinese Martial Arts-Kungfu- class that stressed crisp and masculine moves. I also became interested in Huangmei Opera, a classical Southern Chinese opera much like Giacomo Puccini operas but emphasizes on female characters’ femininity with a touch of country music, at twelve.

It was April 2016 when we were sitting at the dinner table late at night with our family friends. My mom’s phone began to ring. When I saw her reaction, I knew immediately. Her face was pale and she held her hand to her head in disbelief. I knew it was grandpa. Although we knew the death of my grandpa was coming, I never actually wanted to experience the loss. I stood in front of the mirror, staring at myself, crying continuously.

Dealing with the death of a loved one can be an emotionally difficult experience, but by effectively dealing with the grief, I was able to successfully recover and move on. Two years ago, my family and I got the horrendous news that my aunt, who raised my mom, had passed away after a long journey of lung failure. It was truly a tough burden for all of us to endure. To begin with, I mourned over the loss for such a long stretch of time. I would frequently be recollecting all of the memories and unforgettable times that we had together. Crying was another phase of the mourning process for me, and because of this I went through a very sad period in my life. Secondly, I harbored a great deal of anger towards the situation as a whole, even though

I knew that the event that would affect my life and the lives of those around me was approaching. 9 months is more than enough time to truly digest what the arrival of new life would entail and yet I am only scratching the surface of my new role now that we are a year past that fateful 3rd of July.

When I was young, about 4 to 5 years ago, there were many, many young boys my age who lived in the neighborhood, but slowly, over the course of about 2 years, they all moved away from the neighborhood. Leaving me without friends, and reducing the chance of making more, because I lived right down the street from my elementary school, and I wasn’t able to stay there and do extracurricular activities, due to my sister, who I had to walk home and watch over. Which put me into a tough spot, as a young kid, I had done so many things that faded away as my friends had left, I used to play street football, street basketball, and just in the street, my fun in the woods near my house diminished, as I had noone to play with, no other minds, no other people

Each and every time my mother responded either by doing what I asked, like cuddling with me, or by answering my questions and saying, “You were deathly allergic to an antibiotic they gave you. You can’t leave just yet. Who’s Brunner? You missed the volleyball game last night and the girls are worried about you. Today’s Friday Jocey. You missed two days of school. Ryan had to go home because he had school today. He wanted to stay, but he knew you would be angry if he didn’t go to school.”

“We found him last night, Jason. He was just lying there and we thought he was asleep,” explained Mrs. Witt, bawling her eyes out.

Stood at the foot of a bed, on a sunny late July afternoon, I watched someone die.

A single death greatly affected me. On February 8, 2014, after getting into the car with an impaired driver, my eighteen year old friend was killed in a horrific drinking and driving accident.

“Brother, Brother don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!” I turned around I would never leave my brother, I apprehensively turned around keeping the hope that Doodle wasn’t hurt. Even though Doodle was kind of a virulent to me, always following me around being my shadow; I still love him even though he can irritate me. I had inferred that Doodle was hurt when I couldn’t see him anymore, I had lost all hope so quickly. Amazingly when I turned around I saw Doodle running up behind me. I had never felt so much pride in my entire, despite the rain pouring down on me I had never felt better.

I found this reading to be insightful yet strange, I didn’t have much knowledge of the day of the dead I only heard of the day when a coworker of mine asked me to switch shifts because he could not work that day. I was told he could not work, he could only send the day paying respect to his dead ancestors. After reading this chapter I understand how disrespectful my coworker would have been if he had gone to work. In my family, we pay respects on the deceased persons birthday unlike the Hispanics we really on celebrate the people we were the closest with. We don’t set aside food or clothes for them nor do me make out a list of names. Honestly, I don’t know much about my ancestors.

This time, I passively walked to a muted ambulance. No sense of urgency fell upon me to run because I expected to help up an old woman in a white colonial house. Expectation is rarely a reality and eyes tend to deceive the mind. As we pulled up the air outside the white colonial was still. A piercing Siberian gust of wind clawed at my cheek, as if it was warning me not to go inside. I walked through the red door; the fog made it look

As human beings, we suffer losses of many kinds and sizes in our life time. While some of these losses are small and do not hurt much, some are big and hurt deeply. Those that are accompanied by pains that are difficult to bear include the loss of a loved one through death or divorce, cheating or unfaithfulness in a trusted relationship or loss of good health when a diagnosis of a terminal illness is made. In all these instances of loss, pain and grief are experienced and an emotional wound is created which needs healing.

In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 1981 novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the narrative recounts the events leading up to the eventual murder of bachelor Santiago Nasar, a man accused of taking the virginity of the defrocked bride Angela Vicario despite the lack of evidence to prove the claim, and the reactions of the citizens who knew of the arrangement to sacrifice Nasar for the sake of honor. This highly intricate novella incorporates a range of literary techniques, all of which are for the readers to determine who is really to blame for Santiago Nasar’s death. Marquez uses techniques such as foreshadowing and the structure of narrative, along with themes such as violence, religion, and guilt to address the question of blame. Although Santiago