The Lessons I Have Learned

Eli Zimmerman

Ms. Pahomov

English 3

January 8, 2017

I have seen my mother cry once in my life. I remember I was eight  years old when I walked into my parents bedroom, the room was near pitch black and the air was stale it seemed as if the life had been sucked away from the room. I walked up to the lump covered in blankets and pillows, it was my mom. Her face was buried in a pillow and she was crying softly.

“Every year she would call me on my birthday just to catch up and see how I had been.”

“Do you want anything, maybe a glass of water?”

“No I’m fine thank you, I just need sometime to be alone.”

To me my grandmother was someone that made my parents smile, someone who gave me presents she was nothing more yet nothing less. Unfortunately this is all that sticks with me when I think of her. Did I really love her? Should I have loved and cherished the times we had? The simple answer to the deep hitting questions is “I don’t know.”

She died when I was seven. Her name was Janet, she lived in Rochester Minnesota, home to some incredibly cold weather and the world famous Mayo Clinic. The to of us were never all that close due to her sickness she had been isolated from the outside world, including myself. I at the time was much too young to comprehend what had happened, frankly I still do not know the full detailed story because I have been too scared that I will trigger another negative reaction from my mother, which I have no intention of doing.

My feelings of grief are only directed towards those who knew her for who she was, a strong hard working mother of two who was the binding agent in her household. Although I respect these attributes greatly I do not feel a hole in my heart where my grandmother's presence should have been before. I know I have felt love, the embrace of my friends and family, the home cooked meals my mother is always eager to whip up for me, and the passion and drive of my father to make me happy. But love has never been taken away from me. I see friends and family who have gone through the some of the hardest situations anyone can imagine, yet here I am untouched by loss. It makes me feel for the people who have experienced loss. Why have they been selected, why not I? I guess I am greatly fortunate to have not yet been touched by the inevitable effect of loss of someone I love.

I have come close to this event was when my uncles girlfriend of 15 years was diagnosed with a serious form of pancreatic cancer. Once my father had told me the news I cried for a long while. I stayed up, my head churned through the memories of a woman who had babysat me for many years. To think someone who had always been a part of my family may disappear from my life as soon as I woke up kept me up. I had constants butterflies in my stomach I was anxious and weary. This unnerving feeling lasted until I saw her again, when I saw that the diagnosis did not put a damper in her spirit I was finally able to get composure. One who has not experienced this awful disease could not fathom the hardships that a patient must go through.    

This memory of my mother has taught me many things in life, both the imperfections and the good things about death. It has taught me that there is nothing harder than losing the one you love, to have their body and mind be stripped from your grasp brings the person to a sunken low point. But in this pit of despair there is love and compassion for the person that you so dearly care about it results in congregation, like that wonderful ceremony that was held to honor Janet’s legacy. Her ashes were spread in the woods to memorialize her spirit which remained wild and free until the end. The loss of my grandmother has shown me that when people pass they’re remembered through the people that loved them. The time my parents had with my grandmother and even physical attributes, like how I’m constantly reminded I have my grandmother's eyes, blue as the middle of the atlantic. My mother honors the spirit of my grandmother through other things as well, like the fact that she liked marzipan, or long walks in the woods. For not knowing my grandmother all too well she sure has lightened the dark world around me.

The first time I saw my father cry was when we were returning from a basketball tryout that I had completely bombed. At this time I was a small chubby kid that had a bone to pick with running, so when the coach made us run laps I decided to hand in the towel and tell my father to drive me home.

In the car we got into a yelling match for a reason at the time I thought was not deep. He explained that it’s not a good habit for me to get into, quitting at the first sign of difficulty. He digressed as a steady trickle of tears began to fall from his face. I could see the frost from his breath as it intensified. It was 7:30 at night in one of the colder months, like January. He took a deep and began to tell me why quitting without reason was hard for him to tolerate. My father talked about how he started his own architectural firm from nothing. He talked about how he had been fired from many jobs because he was deemed to have a poor work ethic. So obviously the importance of persistence and determination were the key points to his speech.

I at the time was mad at my father for not siding with me and my acceptance of defeat so I remained speechless. The car did not hear another word from either of us for the rest of the night. The only things to be heard were my fathers sniffles and the heater. Deep down I was confused, my mind was racing and I could not conjure up anything to say that would support my argument that quitting is ok. Everything I could think of I knew my father would know how to counter it. It wasn’t till much later that I understood the importance of that lesson.

I didn’t think highly of the things my father explained at the time, in fact it made me want to quit basketball because I felt as if I had to put in a great deal of effort for a sport was wasn’t even that passionate about. In reality the effort I had put in wasn’t enough, my hustle and determination had only shown a mild interest in the sport, I wasn’t even that good but I didn’t notice that at the time.

The importance of my fathers lesson is near priceless to me and the fact that it occured in a time that was swirled with emotion roots the morals in my brain so that they may never be removed. I have learned to try my best and I have learned that the long road of defeats is built to slow me down, but I am aware this is where we strive and push on till eventually we come out successful.