The first time I saw this topic my mind was racing. I live an amazing life! My life is great from going to an amazing school to coming home to a warm bed. Out of all these amazing aspects of my life, the main thing I am thankful for is my family. My family has always been extremely close. Our whole family lives less than a mile away from each other so growing up I saw all my cousins as brothers and sister. From sleepovers to fist fights, we have been through it all. As we got older, most childhood friends drift a part, but it seems as we got older, we all just became closer. We attribute all of that to our parents showing us the meaning of family and our strong foundation rooted in God.
We have so many happy memories; there is no way I could fit them all into an essay. There is one story which best explains why I am so thankful for my family. It is the story which demonstrates how truly strong my family is when we were faced with the death of my mother. My mom was an amazing woman. She raised three kids while my dad was either at medical school or serving our great country in his many tours of duty around the world. She was Lewis County’s only home-bound teacher for more than twenty-five years. In her job, she had to look after kids who were too sick to attend school regularly. She visited their homes, and she was often the only bright spot in a student’s day due to their awful home lifes. I always admired how she could be so kind and caring to her students.
In 2003, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a double mastectomy as well as chemotherapy treatment, and for fourteen years, she was cancer free. One day last fall, I saw my father at my last football game of the year, and I was shocked because he was supposed to be in Iraq for another month, but when I got home that night, all my joy quickly faded when he said to me and my brothers, “Your mom’s breast cancer is back. She has Stage 4 breast cancer throughout her whole body.” We knew it was going to be a long fight. Mom never liked it when people said, “Someone lost their fight against cancer” because she always said, “It’s not a fight, it’s just survival.” So I won’t say she lost; I’ll just simply say on the night of February 21, 2018 we lost her, but she never lost.
The whole purpose of this sad moment in my life is to show how strong my family truly is we have been thrown into hell and we are doing more than just surviving, we’re living! Every day my family uses my mother as a driving force to keep moving forward. Some days it’s hard even wake up but, day by day, minute by minute, we move on and we live for her.
