This I Believe

There are a lot of things I believe in but there is a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. So one of my major beliefs now is that you have to learn to move on with your life. I started to believe in this 5 years ago when my 10 year old cousin was killed by a bus on October 14, 2000. My whole family was heartbroken! Well to make things worse, my grandpa died 7 months later on May 13, 2001, my little brother’s birthday! I remember we had thrown my brother a birthday party and the guests had just left when we got a call from Mexico, telling us about my grandpa. My dad and I drove all the way from Denver to Chihuahua, Mexico to go to his funeral. See my grandpa did not know how to let go, so the grief killed him. My aunt moved on and had two more sons and she is now happy. She is learning to let go, because every time I see her, she seems to act more like her old self before the deaths. My aunt was always happy and cracking jokes until her son died. After that she was like a shell. But as she learns to let go, she seems happier. Of course she will always lament about her son, but she is improving. So now I believe in letting things go because if you don’t, the grief or torment can kill you like it did my grandpa. My other belief is that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. I came to believe this when I was 12 years old. I was in a really big hurry to get to school and since my sister left to school later than me I asked her to go outside and turn the heater on in the room where I kept my pet rabbit, Tommy. It was during the winter in Denver, Colorado and it was freezing cold! It was so cold that if you left a cup of water outside, it would be frozen in 5 minutes! Well I trusted my sister with my rabbit’s life, and she let me down. So that day, when I got home, I went outside to check on my rabbit and he was dead! His room was the same temperature as it was outside in the snow. I was so angry with my sister. When I asked her about it, she told me she had forgotten to do it. I was so angry and sad because I loved that rabbit. So from then on, I decided that if I wanted something done right, I had to do it myself! You can’t rely on other people to do your job for you because they will just let you down. Even if they do what you ask them to, they may not do it the way you want it done. So if you want something done the way you like it, you have to do it yourself. This is what I believe in.