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Alana G

Page history last edited by agonzales1@stgregoryschool.org 13 years, 6 months ago

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Assignment                                          Guy and His Girl

                                                  Alana Gonzales

     When you’re young, it feels like you, and everyone else, will live forever. You are immortal. Yes, you can see the changes and progress in each person but it doesn’t seem as if it will ever end. I was in second grade. Before then, I had never lost somebody so important to me. I didn’t know what it felt like for someone you love to, one day, just be gone. It was a strange emotion that was, for the most part, new to me.


    A large group of family and friends of mine all have season tickets to the U of A football games as we have for many years, even way before I was born. We all go to tailgate parties together on the U of A mall, eat nachos in the stands, and cheer loudly for the Wildcats. The thing that I remember most about my uncle Guy at the games is when we would walk from the mall to the stadium, I was little and did not want to walk that “long distance." He would carry me on his shoulders, even up the steep climb to our seats. Sometimes I wanted to ride on his shoulders not because I didn’t want to walk. Sometimes I just wanted to be with him.


    When I was younger, I would go to Uncle Guy’s house with my family to visit. I drew my uncle pictures and played with his cats. He also had a gerbil named Pushkin. I had never had a gerbil before or even held one. My brother and I would play with Pushkin and tell our mom how much we wanted a gerbil. One night, I had been asleep but I woke up when I heard my uncle, my mom, and my brother talking. Uncle Guy had brought Pushkin for us to keep. We were so excited and even though it was late at night, we showed Pushkin his new home and held him and pet him for hours.


    One day when we came to see Uncle Guy, I found out that he was sick. I thought it was just a cold or the flu or something, but it was not as simple as that. He had cancer. I didn’t know what was possibly coming ahead, but when we visited him we would bring him movies and dinners and I drew him more pictures. One that I specifically remember drawing soon before he was in the hospital was a self portrait of me in the Hello Kitty shirt that I was wearing. We spent as much time with him as we possibly could.


    Soon enough, we stopped visiting him at his house and started visiting him in the hospital. Being so young, I didn’t quite know what to think. So I kept drawing him pictures, one of a Chinese flag for a reason that I don’t remember. I would listen to my mom talk to him about topics I did not quite pay attention to but I was happy just hearing their voices. And I kept bringing him my smiles and laughter. That year, I was in a play at school and I brought my Snow White costume to the hospital, put it on, and sang my solo for him. At first I was nervous to do so, but now when I look back on the situation I am very glad that I did.


    One night,  my parents had gone by themselves to visit him at the hospital, my mom came back crying. She told us that Uncle Guy had passed away. We were all very sad, but decided to remember the good things about him and the fun times we all had. It was weird for me to realize that my uncle was gone. Not completely gone, though. He will always have a special place in my heart.

 

    At his funeral, I sat in the front row with my family, listening to the amazing things that people said about my uncle. Afterwards, his closest family, me included, lined up and shook people’s hands and hugged each other. Every person said something like “I am sorry for your loss” or “Your uncle was a great man." I think it was then, when people started saying things like “loss” and “was” that it really hit me. My uncle had passed away. I will always miss him and think about him forever.


    This life-changing experience caused me to lose a bit of innocence as a child. I realized that people are not immortal and will eventually pass on from this life. Some days, I would become sad at the thought of losing other loved ones, or loved ones losing me. I eventually learned that it was better not to worry about it because even if a person dies, they will be loved and remembered forever.

Comments (8)

Caroline Nore said

at 1:07 pm on Sep 17, 2010

You uplaoded your cover about five times. You might want to try to edit it so you can delete all the extra copies. Otherwise this is really well written.

Hattie Groskind said

at 1:15 pm on Sep 17, 2010

I really like how you wrote this story. I can relate to this situation, and the way you wrote it gave it more of a 'happy to remember' tone than a 'I will always be sad when I think about him' tone.

gbaranowski@stgregoryschool.org said

at 4:23 pm on Sep 17, 2010

I really liked how you started the story off with the mindset you had when you were younger. I think it really helped the story to have an impact further beyond, your uncle died and how you dealt with it.

descarcega@stgregoryschool.org said

at 9:20 pm on Sep 17, 2010

i think this story was really nice, i also like the idea of remembering all the good things about your uncle instead of the fact that he passed away. i think my favorite part was the part where you said you sang for him in your snow white costume.

kfrederique@stgregoryschool.org said

at 11:03 pm on Sep 18, 2010

Your story was very touching. Your video was to the point, it makes people want to read your story.

nbabis@stgregoryschool.org said

at 7:59 pm on Sep 20, 2010

I like how your video stands as sort of a mystery as to how the story is coming of age for the girl.

Alex Valencia said

at 8:43 pm on Sep 20, 2010

This is such a sad story, and I really understand it because when I was only in first grade I lost my grandfather. I agree with what you say about when your a child it doesn't seem like death was even... real? I like how this really explains your feelings and talks not only about the sadness of his death, but also about all the happy things that happened when you knew him. I probably should have included more joyful memories in my story, I think it makes it less depressing. I also think it was very brave of you to write about this, because I could not write about my grandfather without breaking down. It's a beautiful story, and something a lot of people can relate to.

Nikolas said

at 8:23 am on Sep 21, 2010

I dont know what losing a grandfather feels like but im sure its not good
Great story and video

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