In Family I Believe

To me it’s a very difficult thing to put into words. The bonds we share and hold. And how they make you feel in life as you grow older and more mature. Then you start realizing things that mean the most to you. I think for me I was a very fortunate girl, because I grew up in a loving and caring family where we were all very close to one another.

My family was straightforward in sharing anything that they heard or anything that they found out that might be important. No matter what it was we all shared many things. As I grew up there were many things that I believe I couldn’t have made it through without believing in family. When I was about five years old I was just starting kindergarten in my home town at Hand and Hand. My cousin Jordan and I were the same age so we got to start school together. This was the time that we both realized how cool we were starting school together. We were making so many new friends, but in the snap of a finger our family had our first rush of bad news come in. We had found out that my cousin Jordan’s younger brother Cameron was diagnosed with leukemia. I wasn’t for sure what to do or think. All I could remember was that he always had a smile on his face that you could see from miles away. He was one of the strongest kids that our family has ever seen. He fought and he fought this cancer with everything that his little body had. This was a time in my life where I believe that I couldn’t have made it through without believing in family. We all had to pull together and be positive just as Cameron was doing for us. After Cameron had fought for years god took him into his arms in January 1996.

The sun shined down on me and my family as the years passed. And then it came faster than I thought it would it was time for me to go to grade school. I attended a private catholic school by the name of St. Thomas in Philo. It was a Wednesday night and my whole entire family would gather at my grandma and grandpa’s house for dinner. It was a tradition. We all sat down at the dinner table and my grandma said that she had something to tell us. The room got filled will silence really fast. She announced that she just found out that she had lymphoma, which is another type of cancer. The room quickly filled up with tears. But like my grandma said that night was that this is a time a family pulls back together. She also said that we are all in this together. So from then on we were all there for each other to talk to about any concerns that we might have with anything. My grandma is the type of lady who you will fall in love with right away. She has a very positive, loving, and outgoing person. She is the one person that you will find at all my cousins sporting events sitting in the stands cheering for each and every one of us. We are my grandma’s world. Her family was the reason that she stayed strong through all of her chemo. She is now a survivor of the lymphoma cancer. And I know for a fact that if I didn’t believe in family that there would be no way that I would have gotten through this rough time in my life.

As grade school went on and I was getting older and starting to realize more and more about how important my family means to me. They were the highlight of my life. I lean on them for anything and everything. My life all of a sudden was starting to change. I was becoming a girl who had a great strong connection with my family and nothing could get in between us. Then it was my eighth grade year and I was a big dog at Unity Junior High School. I defiantly thought that I ruled the school. Then it was just one of those days that nothing was going right. It was the day I found out that my grandma had cancer once again, but this time it was breast cancer. By this time my grandma was a super grandma. She had been through it all. She was definitely a fighter and it wasn’t over until the cancer was all gone. So as the year went on my family did cancer walks and always kept a positive attitude. Now when my grandma does breast cancer walks she can wear a shirt that says yes I am a breast cancer survivor! And there is no possible way that once again I couldn’t have made it through this without believing in my family.

To me it’s a very difficult thing to understand why god put my family through all of this, but I feel as if this is what made me believe in family. This is where my family grew such a strong bond that will never be forgotten. And this is what we will hold with us for a lifetime. I am still a very fortunate girl, because to this day my loving family is still extremely close to one another. And I wouldn’t change that for anything.