The Unlucky Year --Hannah

My eighth grade year will always go in the books as the worst year of my life, but also my best. In 2015, my parents got a horrible divorce. Everything about it was messy. I never knew that something some extreme as a marital affair would hit my family until it did. My best friend who really got me through all of the tough parts was my grandpa, Pappy. Pappy was the type of grandfather who everyone would want, he always went out of his way for my cousins and I, and would never question a situation we happened to be in. I was at water polo practice one night when my dad picked me up, which he never did, but with all the changes happening around me I did not question it. He started the car to tell me that my mom is going to the hospital to visit Pappy and that it’s not looking good. The following day my mom called my brother and I over the phone to tell us he had passed. Hearing this news hit me harder than hearing about my parents divorce. I never got the chance to say goodbye to the one person who knew me better than I knew myself. It felt like my whole world was crashing down, like I was drowning and I couldn’t come up for air. Being raised in a traditional household of God is real, there’s a heaven and hell; I never had the chance to believe what I wanted to believe in. In my head all I could keep thinking was, “God only gives you what you can handle”,which only got me through so much. Once my Grandpa passed I began to question my faith. I started thinking if there even was a God. I would tell myself, “if God truly loves every single one of us, why would he place something so emotional draining on my life”. As dramatic as I can be, I really thought my life was falling apart and that it was finally over. That night of hearing of my Grandpa’s passing, I was sitting on my couch and looked across to see my Pappy sitting there. In my ear I heard him say “Goodbye honeygirl” with a wave. It may have been a hallucination, but to this day I refuse to accept that it was and instead it was my goodbye to my Grandfather. People call me crazy for believing that, but I call them even crazier... because do you really think that my best friend was going to go away without saying bye? It was in that moment, I told myself that I’m not going to be so depressed and to change my outlook on life to think of everything as the glass is always half full. I knew it was going to take time, because no wound heals overnight, but eventually after many, many counseling sessions I became a very optimistic person with a very positive outlook on life. I may not have gotten a strong relationship back with God, but I was able to reopen it again and build a stronger relationship with my parents. I used to be ashamed of admitting that I come from a “broken home”, but it has attributed to the person I am today; strong, mature, and happy. Even though I was dealt a poor deck of cards, I soon saw that I don't have it as bad as others do. I am exceptionally loved, I have a warm bed to sleep in, clothes to put on, and food to eat. The year started off as the worst year of my life, but it soon became a year where I learned how to think for myself. Yeah, it was not the best year of my life, but somehow I feel lucky to have gone through something some tragic and come out of it so strong. Taking care of a younger brother who did not know how to take care of himself and a mother who felt more weak and broken than ever, I had to step up for my family and mature a lot faster than I would have without this situation. My parents split made what I want and don’t want in a future companion more clear, I was able to stick up for myself, and came out the end of a dark tunnel better than ever. My eighth grade year will always be surrounded with dark clouds in my memories, but I will never forget the sunshine I got coming out of it