If human beings were not as averagely intelligent as we have evolved to become, then we would have gone extinct thousands of years ago. If one takes away the tools and the shelter and the clothes and we are so terrifyingly weak. This fact is no scarier for anyone other than us, and having faith in something larger than your existence was and still is the way people battle away a lot of this fear. Therefore, everyone on Earth holds some set of beliefs. If we feel that humans are here because we have some higher power that is more terrible than our predators and more awesome than the diseases, then our existence is justified and we are safe. Whether they be religious or not is up to them, but no one lives without them. My personal set of beliefs and religious practices was established over my entire lifetime and is still vulnerable to change even now.

Daddy was born to two genetically predisposed Methodists. His daddy fought in World War II, and survived three gunshots for his wife, not G-d. Granddaddy and Grandma did not really actively practice or believe in being a Methodist. They attended church occasionally, except for Dad, who threw a tantrum at age 8 and never had to go again. After enduring his service in the Korean War, he followed his father’s example in what to believe. He didn’t really stick to a religion growing up, and sired seven children and one half son.

When I was five years old, Mom became pregnant again. This was my father’s last child. She went into labor on Christmas Eve. I remember asking our nanny when the new baby, Aurora, was coming home. They managed to hide it from me for two weeks before they told me that Aurora died during labor. The umbilical cord had gotten wrapped around her neck and she had choked to death before they caught it. They were devastated, both of them. I was too young to understand the true gravity of what had happened. Daddy told me that in order to get him out of his depression, some of his closest friends took him on a road trip. They gave him a story called the Shack by William P. Young.

“Mackenzie Allen Philips' youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation, and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his "Great Sadness," Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.”

The road trip and the book helped Dad to recover. He tells me that today he believes in the eagles, high cirrus clouds, coronas, deer, and that book that helped recover himself from his loss. This unique view on life makes my Dad an interesting person, but does not really affect my life that much anymore.

My mom, Beth R. Koenig, was born a reform Jew and was raised as a reform Jewish person. She attended Hebrew School until after her bat mitzvah or Jewish coming-of-age ceremony. After that, she attended the holidays and she did little events and services. Otherwise, she did not practice. I suspect that her religious choices have to do with her family. I used to visit and stay over, but now, only my brother talks to them. Over my lifetime, I have seen her grow into spiritualism. I am not completely sure on how this happened, or why it did, but her transition changes my life irrevocably. The rules of her life didn’t stop with her. My younger sibling and I were given gluten free and dairy free diets all the time for “a healthier lifestyle” even though we had no allergy. Homeopathic remedies are go-to medicinal routes. She nags me even now to visit the chiropractor every other week. The problem I have here is this: I am not a spiritualistic person. I do not believe even in half the ideas that she does. Unfortunately, I depend on this person to feed and nurture me. I live with her and see her everyday. I think that it is better for me not to fight with her about her beliefs every other day. I let a lot, and I do mean a lot of issues with her go. I often will nod my head along with her words, or give an empty agreement. Due to this relationship I have in my life, it is actually sort of difficult to slip a belief into my head. First, I will identify that it isn’t what I believe, and then I will tear it apart and find everything that is wrong with it. Finally, I will kick it to the curb. However, when surrounded by others who believe differently than I do, I am able to respect their ideas and do my best to tolerate and understand.

In sixth or seventh grade, I learned that later reports of the tragedy of a super eruption due to the majestic Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii suggested that Pompeii’s citizens believed that the Roman god of fire, Vulcan, was angry with them. On the day of this infamous catastrophe, it was said that about half the entire population actually tried to give offerings and prayers to the mountain. His name later gave fruit to the name for the never before seen erupting mountain, volcanoes. The decimation of an entire city that believed that if they could appease Vulcan, the sky would come back proves that every belief can evolve, fail, be challenged, and or change.

My first “official” religion was Reform Judaism. In second grade, I moved away from my best friend. That was not acceptable, and so I began attending the Rodeph Shalom Synagogue. That was not the only reason I became a member. My first and favorite part of the entire religion is Sunday morning services. The music and unity of this this ceremony was like nothing I had ever seen before. I felt out of place until I started singing along with everybody else. I felt a positive connection to everyone around me. I fell in love with that connection, and I graduated from Hebrew School last year. Zooming in on the more religious aspects of Judaism, I am a very loose practitioner myself. I attribute this to how I was raised and also my personal philosophies.

The highest power that I believe exists is the balance of the universe we exist in. To be more specific, I think that our entire world revolves on the balance of opposites. Life and death, good and bad, action and reaction. I believe that every single loss has an equal and opposite gain and vise versa. That is what I think drives the world. Everything has a price, everything. I can’t really believe in a god because I haven’t experienced anything that could make me believe in them. As to the contents of the Torah, the Jewish holy book, I agree with most of the philosophical content and think a lot of its history actually happened. However, there’s a lot of the Torah that’s disagreeable or looks to have- a covert reason of existence. I found most major religions to have this in common. So until my way of thinking is challenged on Vesuvius level proportions, I plan on maintaining this personalized set of beliefs.

I think differently from everybody else. This might sound cliche but I really do. One thing I usually do is overthink and blame myself for things. I feel like I should be held responsible for a lot of things especially if I am aware of the situation. As a human, everybody in this world has the opportunity to do things that they almost never do. There are a lot of reasons that we decide against doing a lot of things that we truly know need to be done. One of the biggest things that I regret is not being there when I know I should have been. I had the chance to help. But I did not. Instead of helping I sat there and said nothing. I did nothing and here I am writing this essay with a guilty conscience that sometimes starts to eat at me. I honestly don’t know what to do to fix it. Someday I will have to realize that I did mess my only chance up. I have to realize that I decided against doing everything that I could have because I just wanted to be to myself and not with anyone else. I did not want to hug anybody or say hello to anyone. I did not want to check up on anyone. I definitely did not want to say things would be okay because I knew they wouldn’t be.

Reading this, you probably have no clue what I am talking about. I haven’t exactly said it yet because it is still kind of hard to process the events. It’s still hard talking about what happened because I wish it did not happen. I was in seventh grade and we had not been too far into the school year. I knew Uncle Bill was sick so I truly don’t understand why I was so shocked when we got the call. I had just got up to get ready for school and my mom told me something that I was not quite ready to hear. She had just gotten a call from Uncle Bill’s wife, Aunt Tiny. I probably don’t even have to say what happened at this point and I really don’t want to. I remember going in the bathroom and not believing what had exactly happened. I was confused and shocked and hurt. All I wanted to know was why this happened. I continued to get ready for school but I felt no emotions at all. It was as if all my senses had been taken away from me and I was left with a body that I had absolutely no control over.

I remember being in school later that day, and while I was having a conversation with my friends laughing, I blurted out that my uncle had died. My friend asked why I was laughing and okay, but I didn’t know why I was. A little later into the school day I got a message from my mom saying that she was coming to get me. Because it was so early in the day when I got my early dismissal, my teacher asked why I even bothered coming to school. I didn’t even bother to tell him about what had just happened. When my mom came to get me I found out that the reason she had left work so early was because her boss wanted her to “go home and take it easy” since she had been at work upset and crying. I didn’t exactly know how to comfort her because I didn’t know how to comfort myself. I then decided to just leave the situation alone hoping that my mom would eventually be in better spirits.

The hardest thing about writing this essay, is trying to write this essay as the person I was when I first received information of his death. I can no longer be that emotionless person especially because I still haven’t gotten over the death of Uncle Bill. I’m not sure if I ever will. I still find myself balled up in the corner crying on his birthday, August 24. I still cry on the day of his death, October 29 because I find myself replaying the events of that day in my head. Saturday, November 2, 2013 was the day of his funeral. I was not sure what to expect at the funeral. I was okay until we got to the funeral. The church was packed as I walked down the aisle next to my aunt, who was one of his many nieces. When we got to the casket I could not look at him. He was not the same person that I had always known. I began to cry and I don’t remember stopping until the end of the service. During the service everyone kept telling me that things were going to be okay because he was no longer suffering from the cancer that we thought he could handle. But I honestly don’t think that anybody understood how I looked at this.

I have probably been to about 100 funerals in my lifetime. Growing up my family was very active in church and I would always end up at any event that they had to attend. Since my grandparents were ushers, and I spent a lot of time with them, I would usually attend the funerals at church that they ushered. Sitting in the back of the church, I would see all the families crying but I never knew exactly why. Yes, I understood that they had just lost a loved one. But it seemed that going to all these services caused me to build a barrier to protect my feelings when I went to funerals. I would never cry at any of the services  including those of strangers and the family members I saw laying in the casket. In third grade I was even hysterical when my mom did not allow me to go to my cousin Aaron’s funeral. He was a teenager who had just been killed in Southwest. Something about these funerals engaged me and interested me. That wasn’t the case for Uncle Bill. For the first time I felt what those families had felt. Seeing someone that you can no longer hug or hold laying in a casket stiff and cold has to be one of the most devastating feelings ever.. You start to feel empty and cold inside because you don’t know what is next for you.

We knew Uncle Bill was sick but we didn’t know it would end like this or even end at all. Everyone was telling me that he was going to be okay and I believed them because what else could I do. For weeks we would go over his house and there would always be a people there either speaking the word (reading the bible), or bringing comfort food to his wife. Crowding around him, people would hold his hand and talk to him about past memories just to see him smile. I never did this though. Everytime we went over, I sat on the couch watching television, Sometimes I wouldn’t even go over and greet him and at that moment I wasn’t quite sure what was causing me to stray away from him. One of the days that we went to see him, I was sitting on the couch sneezing. As he lay on his deathbed, with little to no strength at all, he said “bless you”. This was the man that I grew up knowing and loving. Someone who was very protective and caring about his family especially the girls in his life.

Now that I look back at that year, I felt the most hurt from my grandfather, Uncle Bill’s brother. As a young teenager I was never really as concerned about how he felt in this situation until now. During the process he was always very quiet and to himself, which was unlike him because he was known for “talking someone’s ear off”. Whenever we went over Uncle Bill’s house, Pop Pop (my grandfather) would sit next to Uncle Bill’s hospice bed and hold his hand while he talked on and on about memories from their childhood up until now. One of my favorite stories was the story about how Pop Pop and their other brother, Uncle Walt, had pushed Uncle Bill down a hill in a little wagon which caused him to end up with a broken arm. Stories like that brought tears to my eyes because it made me realize how tight their bond was. That right there was an explanation of what would happen next.

Throughout this whole process, I tried as much as possible to stay to myself. I wasn’t aware that this would get me into trouble. One day, I came home and I did what I had been doing everyday, staying to myself. Things were pretty quiet in the house until Pop Pop approached me. Yelling at me, without yelling, he asked me why I wasn’t worried about Uncle Bill and why I never ask him how he was doing. I distanced myself because I never knew what was coming next. All I knew was that I had been told everything was going to be fine and somehow things were never okay. Those endless nights of me crying my eyes out never stopped because I still never found out how to deal with death.

This essay is especially hard for me to write because I am still dealing with how to deal with the death of a loved one. Since the death of Uncle Bill, I have not looked at death the same.  During 2017, I lost 3 people who I truly love. Uncle Jazzy, Aunt Jo, and Aunt Stelle lost the life that once graced their bodies. I regret every second that I passed up because I was being selfish and laying in my own bed of pain while I ignored theirs. It takes such a toll on me because I always feel like there is so much more that I could have done to help that person and to help myself. It is incredibly hard to deal with change that not only takes a toll on you, but also the people around you. I am supposed to be answering the question, “How does the self react to and deal with change?”. It’s simply hard to answer that question because I am still unsure about how to deal with change. I would explain how others deal with change but everyone around me deals with it differently. When things begin to change, it begins to disrupt the normal flow of how things go and as hard as it may be to say this, things will never go back to the way they were before the change happened. So I guess the best way to deal with things like this are to adapt although it might be one of the hardest tasks life throws at you.

“Are you OK?”  There are other ways of checking in on someone, but that just happens to be the most common one. Asking someone are they O.K doesn’t make things better for the person, it just gives the one that’s asking certainty about the person’s being. As for me. I’ll be honest about if I’m fine or not, but i’ll let that person know so they’ll not have to worry about making me feel O.K. “No, I am not O.K” came out faster than the paramedics that Sunday morning when my mom collapsed on dining room floor.

She was admitted to Einstein Hospital around 2pm on Valentines Day. When my dad arrived at the hospital room, the doctors explained that they tried everything the could to bring her to back life. When my dad came back from the hospital I was expecting good news. The words “she didn’t make it”  had me lost, I was confused and angry. I started pointing fingers blaming the paramedics for being late, blaming the doctors at the hospital for not doing the best they could but most importantly myself. I continued asking myself was it the food I gave her that morning to oily or salty? Did I stress her out? I panicked and fell to the floor screaming  because I couldn’t bear with the fact I lost my mother, my other half.
Therapy wasn’t my first option for handling grief. My dad worried about me because I was too quiet. When someone ask about the situation, I would avoid the main subject which was her dying. I would talk about her death as if she had never passed away and she was still alive. I told my dad I prefer talking to him about everything that I felt and that I just need different opinions on how to handle the situation. He suggested for me to go to therapy because they are more professional and have more experience with incidents that deal with grief. I’m not comfortable with the fact that therapy was one of the options because of my trust issues. My views on therapy was that the therapist was only there to pass your personal information on to the next person. The therapist will take your deepest darkest secret and go home to their families, sit down at the dinner table to share their day at work. “ She told me that she says she’s the reason for her mother’s death. Isn’t that ridiculous?”. See what’s ridiculous is taking my trust for granted and that’s the last thing I needed.

My first therapist was someone that understood me. My first session of the three sessions we shared were mostly about what happened and how I felt in the moment. I hesitated at first but I went on with the story and she told me how she felt the same pain when her father passed. I felt more comfortable because not only did she  have a family member that passed away, this family member was her parent. Our first activity together was a goodbye letter I wrote during our second session. The goodbye letter was a source for letting out what you might want to say to the person before they passed. In my letter. I wrote about how my last words shouldn’t of been “I’m sorry” It should of been “I love you” or “I admire you” or “ you’re the best”. She read my letter and asked if I need a moment and I told her no. I felt relieved and more free to say whatever I felt about the situation and how I am dealing with it because we shared similar experiences. My third and final session wasn’t really a session. I arrived to the appointment late and she was heading out the door. “I have been assigned to work for another company. I needed you to be here on time so we can talk about you meeting with the your new therapist. You’re going to receive a phone call from NHS in two weeks to set an appointment. Nice working with you.” Then she left and I was angry. It was bad enough I had trust issues and told my personal business to someone I barely knew. Then that person leaves and takes my business with them to pass it onto the person.

I received my therapist three weeks after I decided I didn’t want to continue going to therapy. I was still stuck on the fact that I opened up to someone and now they’re gone. What possibly could encourage me to continue telling my business to another person who don’t know me besides the fact that I am grieving? I ended going to my appointment anyway because I still wanted different perspectives on how to deal with grief. That Tuesday afternoon, I went to my session and waited twenty minutes into the 1 hour session. The twenty minutes felt like hours and I just wanted to go home. She finally came down and we walked to her room on the second floor. She opened her door and offered me to sit anywhere but I choose the corner because she is a stranger. I sat down and she asked me about the situation but I looked at her like how doesn’t she know about it already. My thoughts were she wanted to hear the story to pass time and that old my therapist didn’t go over the details from the previous sessions I’ve had. I just told her the story because I wanted to see how she feels about it. As she took notes on her computer, I asked what kinds of activities are we going to go over to help with my grieving issue. She told me she had the “5 stages of Grief activity” which is an an article that is going to help with seeing where my emotions lie within the situation. For the next session we went over the 5 stages of Grief which are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. She had a list of questions and I would answer these questions so that she can see which of my emotions fall under certain category. The results were I was mostly angry at the situation and I was accepting the fact that I was the reason for her death. For the rest of the session we talked mostly about why I feel like I’m the reason. I explained to her I only felt like this because I was there at the moment with her, when she collapsed, when she was taken out of the house, when she was in the ambulance. She told me that it is good that I accepting the fact that she is gone, which really means that I am not in denial about her passing away. She comforted me by telling me that we will work on ways on how not to feel like I am the cause of her death. I went home that night thinking that therapy might not be so bad after all. Maybe putting my trust into my therapist is for the greater good.  I know my mom would have wanted me to give it a chance, now I feel like I’m doing it for us.

Little things in life will lead to bigger things. Having school work, coming home to a house full of people who are loud, helping my little brothers with their school work, cooking dinner, and getting myself together for the next day day are just the little things. The bigger thing in this case, would be maintaining my own lifestyle without out my mom. Setting my opinions and my feelings aside to benefit myself is the best choice I have made so far. What I learned was that putting my pride aside should only be done if I feel comfortable enough to do so. I have also learned that making choices for myself shouldn’t have to start with me being “O.K” it should start with how I want to feel in the end. Trusting my therapist just a little should help with adjusting my trust issues with other people. My mom’s death gives me strength and knowledge to know that I am putting my trust into something for a reason. Knowing that my guardian angel is watching me makes me feel proud to say that “I am going to be O.K”.

Sharron Norton

Personal Memoir

Ms. Pahomova

3 English

The Ingredients To A Perfect Disaster

They tell you don’t forget where you came from. I regret where I came from. The manifestation of my existence was solely based on the desire of skin and a placeholder to fill the missing piece of a father’s love. There was no love in my making, nor is there today. No happy white picket fence type of family. Instead what was left of this mess was a 15 year old high schooler with clothes that looked as if it couldn’t barely fit her small petite body always with a big snow coat on, rushing to the bathroom. And to your surprise, hiding me.  

I never really knew the details surrounding the circumstance around my coming into the world.  I was left to soak up whatever my mom or grandma desired to slip out. I was left to suffer the longing to want a father. I’m independent and I had to learn that the hard way. I learned dependability, for it was a gateway to disappointment. Do you know how it feels to always feel alone? Do you know how it feels to always be disappointed, to always feel drained by the disappointment? I do not want your pity. I don’t need anyone to tell me that I’m better off, or that my life's better without him in it. I’ve understood this from a young age. I’ve understood that two can sometimes be better than three. When the last one is only there to anger you. All that I am is all that you see. My heart not being placed on my sleeve is no longer a defense mechanism, but a way I’ve chosen to live my life.

So I live taking one day at a time. But sometimes the noise gets too loud. The clamor begins to suffocate me. And just before I lose the grasp of what really matters after I worked so hard to get to that place; I slip back into my old ways. A place of solitude where my mind was beaten to believe I was nothing. A place where I was pushed into blaming myself.  A place where I envied others lives, and punish myself every day for it.  For it’s a sin in my religion. I tell myself it’s the color of my skin, but it’s not that simple. I know I am beautiful on the outside. But ugliness was linked to the environment I lived in. I envy the innocents my peers have had growing up when it has been ripped out my bare hands with my permission. I had no voice. For was silenced by my emotions on the lost of him that if I expressed how I felt then he would once again leave and this time it would be my own faught. So I endured the misery. I took comfort in it for it made me feel. The inflicting torment it gave me constructed agony in the best way. A love-hate relationship, I guess you can say.

But with this self medicate came along the nastiest type of anger. I would put on this personification that I was okay and that it didn't affect me but inside, self-hate dominated. I hated myself, for how could I have wanted somebody in my life that didn’t care about his only daughter? A person who had the money to care for you but choose not to. How could I want a man in my life who purposely disrespected my mother constantly and caused the feud between our relationship? The load of regret became too heavy and all at once it towered down. All that was left of the ruins were brokenness. He left me with nothing. The only thing this man gave was the color of my skin and my appearance. Everything else he selfishly possesses in his childish soul. Everything he took from me that prevented me from access to a world of both parents to happiness of a little girl, innocence, and peace. He denied me access to feel the love from a father.  What he stole from me was the opportunity on how a man should treat you. I have to learn this on my own for there are just some things a mother can’t teach you.  He says, “ All the things that you went- Nu, I never meant to put you thought it”. He explains this to me as if he wants me to tell him how to right his wrongs. But I couldn't and wouldn’t. He was too stubborn for his own good to see that he was the cause of my despair. And like father and daughter,  I was too.

I felt lost in this world. All that went through my head was that no one could understand how I felt. In the aftermath of it all, I felt that I would never be truly cherished. But in the midst of it all, I got the chance to actually feel loved by someone. This person was very dear to me.  But I let my fear of letting someone into my life misguide me and letting a great opportunity fade away. I had been beaten into submission into thinking that all the good things that came across my life would never work. I was so used to believing that all men were the same. I let fear and the anger of my father, once again, rob me of what I was to be awarded of. And still today I am troubled by my decision. Trouble from how my life could separate such a great relationship. How it's baggage dressed in sheep's clothing took the responsibility to purposely shout out to destroy happiness when I need it most. I was arrogant, thinking it would actually last right? Yeah, I know.  

I blame my failure at a true relationship all on me. I didn’t know how to handle all the emotions. For so long I’ve had all of these emotions bottled up because I am ashamed of my thoughts. I can’t talk to my friends even my mother, who is my closest companion, about how I feel because I have no words it. And if I try to speak on my body will drown in it all. And I carry this burden with me every day. I don’t feel anymore. I used to be sad but now I’m just numb. And now, all of a sudden I feel really tired. Like the world had drained me of everything that I had. And suddenly,  I decided it was time to change. To not give this man the satisfaction of feeling he won. To live for my sisters. Live for my mother and do the best I can so I won’t be classified as another stereotype. But I do have my bad days. Someday I feel the world can be just a plane of my existence and nothing more, just repeated streets and highways, to remind me that the world never changes. And during those days, the only consistency I enjoy is sleep.

Have you ever felt like something was holding you back from really living your life? I once felt the same way. Every. Single. Day. I couldn’t enjoy my life in the way that  I wanted to because I was different from “normal people”.

Imagine being in elementary and having someone watch over you the whole school day. You go to recess, she tells you to stop or you’ll hurt yourself, or slow down or reminds you that you can’t play that way. After, you have to be taken out of class to take medication to keep you free from injuries, and having things be the same way outside of school. That was me. I felt like my walls were too small for me to explore, I was trapped in a box. I started to hate this part of me and wonder when I could enjoy myself like other kids. I hated that I was different from other kids in my neighborhood. This is what Hemophilia did to me. What that means is my blood doesn’t clot normally. What that looks like can be pretty awful.

For example, about 4 years ago, my brother and I were playing at the park downtown. The park had large game pieces for decoration. I stood up on one of them,  looked over to the next one and told myself I could make the jump. I ran and jumped off into the air. As soon as I landed, my foot slipped and I injured my leg by hitting it on the side of the game piece. I thought I was fine at first so we went on with our day. As I was walking my leg began to ache really bad. I lift my pants leg up and my calf was swollen really bad, the whole thing was purple and bruised. We went home and I took my medication. I waited a week for it to get better but there was no result. A few days later my mom took me to the Hematology clinic. The nurses ran a few test on me. They told me I had an inhibitor. My medication wasn’t working properly for me so the healing took even longer after getting hurt. Not being able to walk, stand or even sleep the way you want to for almost a whole month, are somethings you wouldn’t want to live with.

I didn’t want to miss anymore days of school, so I was told to use a wheelchair until my leg was fully healed. The first day back at school  after the incident was annoying for me. I had a lot of different people I knew, and some that I didn’t know, come up to me saying things like, “What happened?”, “How long until you can walk again?” or “Dang, I wouldn’t want to be you.” The entire time I wanted to respond, “Do you think I would want to be myself right now?”Day in, day out I have to suffer from my own life of living with a disorder I didn’t ask for. I can’t even go to school and perform  simple tasks, such as writing or walking, without getting a  messed up leg or having my finger having a spontaneous swelling. Yeah it seems like  something small but knowing things like that will happen again constantly leaves no room forgetting used to it. Who would want to be me?  

Throughout my life I’ve loved sports, watching and  playing alike. My favorites are basketball and football because I understand what’s going on, unlike with other sports.  Do you remember point of time when you were younger had that perfect career for the future in mind? I always wanted to be a football player. It didn’t matter what team I would play for, as long as it was a good team. My position, quarterback or Wide receiver. When I was old enough to play for a team, I asked my dad if he could sign me up for a neighborhood football team. I remember him looking at me and doing a short laugh. Then he saw that I was serious.

He told me what I always hear. “ Listen, I know you love football, I would sign you up tomorrow if I could. But you know you can’t play a sport like that, it’s too rough for you. Just try to look for something different, and?” There was no point of trying to argue and getting my point across. I wanted to hear something different like “Yeah you can play but just be careful” or “You’ll need extra gear to protect you.” I would’ve done anything to play football. The way I felt that day, it was truly heartbreaking. As life went on for me, I began to feel like I had no purpose, but to go to school and get good grades. I hid my pain deep down inside and accepted the box I was living in.

My freshmen year of high school, I took my father's advice and looked for different things I thought I would enjoy. I went to a few robotic club meetings at first but it was boring, really boring for me. Later in that school year, I started to go to art club because some  of my friends thought I was really good. I did go to a couple art classes at Moore College of Art and Design back in middle school, so I thought why not improve my drawing skills. I enjoyed it but I didn’t stay for long. I felt like I was missing something. Something like the excitement, that adrenaline running through my veins. Competition. I wanted something that would keep me going and motivated. My sophomore year I tried out for a sport I wasn’t so good at, track & field. I was a little nervous at first, I was afraid I wasn’t fast enough but I tried out anyway. track & field wasn’t on the list of sports I couldn’t play, neither was baseball, but I felt more comfortable with track. My first year of track, I was disappointed with my performance. I have a lot to learn so I planned to continue my junior and senior year.

At this point of my life, being more mature and accepting that space I was stuck in for so long, helped me see that this box has so much to offer to me, and I was blinded by the things I wanted most. When everything I needed was right in front of my face. Growing up, I believe so much was given to me for having Hemophilia. I’m giving a big thank you to St. Christopher’s Hospital,Hematology specifically. They provide so much for me and my family, things such as being able to see different events for free. Santa and Channel 6 news coming to my home and giving us with amazing gifts twice, and being selected by Make-A-Wish Foundation. My wish was having a whole week vacation to Disneyworld and Universal Studios Florida. When there’s something bad in your life, you always have to look on the bright side. I believe God gave me this blood disorder for a reason and I just have to find it while I’m still young, instead of complaining all my life about how I can’t do certain things. I’m starting to understand, there's a lot of things I can do in the world and have accomplished. I once felt like hemophilia was holding me back from living my life, but being different can lead to different and amazing possibilities.

Avi Cantor

Ms. Pahomov

English 11

Being Jewish on Christmas

It’s January 2nd, 2018 and I’m sitting on my beanbag chair writing the draft of what Ms. Pahomov has assured the class will be the “Best Personal Essay Ever”.

If I was part of the majority of students in Ms. Pahomov’s Air Stream English Class who “celebrate” Christmas, I might have been able to blame my procrastination on Christmas. I could’ve given the reader an excuse like “Oh I had tons of family over and we were all so wrapped up in the exchanging of gifts and all the other fun stuff that is involved with Christmas.” But I can’t because I’m a conservative jew (which is a branch of Judaism just like Catholic or Protestant etc) who has quite possibly one of the most jewish names ever. Adding on to the in-your-face nature of my unusual name, I am the exact stereotype of a jew on Christmas Eve and Christmas.

“Abba (dad in hebrew), I know who Woody Harrelson is,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Ooh it has the woman from Fargo! I’m down,” my mom exclaimed. My brother walked down the fading grey carpeted stairs sporting blue and green plaid SLA pajama pants. He was on his way into the kitchen for breakfast when my mom asked him if he wanted to go to the movie as well. He lethargically shrugged his shoulders as he stumbled off of the wooden step and turned through the doorway into the kitchen. Minutes later he brought a pair of strawberry Pop Tarts into the living room and abruptly dropped into the seat of a green one-armed chair.

“When are we going?” he mumbled through a mouthful of Pop Tart.

“Soon as you finish eating,” my mom responded in an eager tone.

“M’kay,” he grumbled.

After my brother changed, we headed to the movie at the Roxy Theater in Society Hill. As we drove, I spotted tons of signs with “LAST CHANCE CHRISTMAS DEALS” or “MERRY CHRISTMAS, PHILLY!” printed on them with huge red and green lettering. But not one that mentioned anything about any other holiday. Being that I’d seen signs like these since I was little, it didn’t bother me that there weren’t any signs about Chanukah or Kwanza or any other seasonal holiday. Our car bumped along on a cobblestone street until we found a spot across the street from the theater.

✦✦✦✦

As Lonely by Yung Bans and Lil Skies’ bubbly and video game-esk instrumental started to become less resonant in my headphones, I started to slowly slide my legs out of bed. I stretched out and looked outside my bedroom window. The PECO building lights stuck out like a sore thumb against the pitch black sky. The numbers “6:48” jogged across the top of the building as I began to stretch my groggy limbs. I walked downstairs to my mom sitting cross legged on her computer and my dad fast asleep on the couch smothered in a red and blue yarn blanket. My dad finds football games as the ideal soundtrack for a nap while my mom finds the games to be perfect background noise for working on the various things that come in her job description.

“Oh Av. You’re up. I was thinking that we could go to Chinatown for Christmas Eve dinner. What do you think?” My mom asked, suddenly looking up from her computer.

“You want to go to-”

“Sang Kee Noodle House!’ My brother exclaimed walking out of the kitchen with a newly peeled orange.

I gave my mom the “he has a good point” look and she shrugged. “I’m down.”

Ten minutes later, a Lyft arrived at the door of our small brick row home. We climbed into the driver’s sedan and drifted down to the bottom of our street. “So, you guys got your Christmas tree up yet?” The driver asked. My dad casually answered that we had, a typical move from a man who doesn’t enjoy hostile or uncomfortable confrontation. Many Jews who I’ve been around are as passive as my dad when it comes to questions about Christmas. However, my mom isn’t one of those people. She viciously bit her lip as her eyes narrowed. Her arms were flexed just above her lap and her fists balled up so tight I thought her hand would split open. My dad continued to make small talk with the driver for most of the ride, seeming unfazed by the man’s remark.

The driver dropped us off in front of the restaurant, gave us a stiff lipped smile, and drove off. We entered the restaurant and were guided to a table near the restaurant’s glass doors. Seconds after we’d sat down, my mom started to voice her dismay at the driver’s inability to recognize that many people don’t celebrate Christmas. She continued to argue that America is notorious for not recognizing people’s cultural backgrounds and making generalizations that allow people to think that everyone celebrates Christmas. Her point really resonated with me as I continued to explore this concept throughout the night. Her argument made me realize that watering down culture and our differences is a value that is deeply embedded in American culture. Digging deeper into this theme, I realized that commercialism has made a similar effect on Christmas. Commercialism turned the holiday into an excuse to spend money on meaningless items and has seemingly lost all religious ties to Christianity.  I went to sleep that night asking myself what the point of Christmas really was.

I woke up late the next morning to my dad shaking me and telling me that we were going to my aunt and uncle's house for a Christmas-ish lunch. My brother and I stuffed Pop Tarts into our hungry mouths and hopped into the car. As we drove over the South Street Bridge, I looked at various people’s Snapchat stories and watched as they ripped open presents. I scrolled through three or four stories that were all variations of boasting what they got from their parents and/or loved ones. But then I saw one story that stuck out from the others. After ripping open presents, the girl got up and gave her mother a huge embrace. While hugs aren’t exactly a commodity in the world we live in, this hug made me really think and helped change my view on Christmas entirely.

I realized then that while Christmas is often the forefront of seasonal advertising and that consumerism has become an integral part of the holiday, at the end of the day, Christmas is about being with family and going out of your way to do something nice for someone else. Christmas gives families an opportunity to bond and reconnect and to be a part of something greater by giving to others. Thinking critically about Christmas made me realize that going to my aunt and uncle’s house meant that I was “celebrating” Christmas in my own way. I got the opportunity to reconnect with family and celebrate our time together with food and exchanging time from our busy lives to spend time together.

This theme of an intense familial bond and being a part of something greater is one of the overarching themes of Tim O’Brien’s novel The Things They Carried. In O’Brien’s various stories, he shows how being together for every hour of every day force the soldiers of the Alpha troop to form fervent familial connections to everyone in the troop. The beginning of the book lists every single thing that the soldiers carried with acute precision. This acute attention to detail shows how well O’Brien knew his troop. As for being a part of something greater than yourself, all of the men in the Vietnam war were fighting so that their families and country would have security in their lives.