The Lesson:
I like to think that all essays teach me something new as I write them. Essays are like a journey through the desert. Once your done (and never before), it's good to look back and think about what you learned.
In this particular essay, I got the feed back that I needed to include more details about being in the room with my sick grandma. I felt slightly uncomfortable during that part of my essay, so I think that I rushed through it.
Writers need to learn that sometimes when you're writing about something that is important to you, you will be uncomfortable. My boss one time shared a quote from an unknown author: "Everything you write should be on the verge of embarrassing you." It's okay to feel uncomfortable because that means you picked a good subject that has a lot of meaning to you and needs to be explored.
So Writers, don't feel embarrassed. Write about a subject that you feel needs exploring and don't worry about how others might judge you.
How we can apply this into our own writing:
- Don't be scared to dive deeper into a subject
- Don't let your audience intimidate you before you even start writing
This afternoon feels hot and sticky. My grandmother feeds my little sister in an old wooden high chair. My mom leans against the breakfast bar in the old brown kitchen while fanning herself and asking about home remedies for headaches. My older sister, brother, and I explore the backyard looking for wild raspberries while avoiding bees. My grandparents love vegetation though have no talent for growing a garden. As a result, bushes including but not limited to rhubarb, raspberries, squash, and bushes that I don’t even know the names to overrun their backyard. My siblings and I pretend that we are on an Amazon safari as we push through the vegetation. Bees and grasshoppers make a roaring buzz around the backyard. I smell marigolds, which I hate, but my Grandma likes their bright colors of orange and yellow, so they grow in all of the planter boxes.
I feel a sting on the bottom of my foot, and I think for a second that I have stepped on a knife. I let out a blood curtailing scream, and the next thing I know I am swept into the kitchen to sit on the window seat that over looks the backyard. My mother scolds me about not wearing shoes and about stepping on one of my grandpa’s honeybees. My grandma speaks in a soothing tone. She inspects my foot with her overly large glasses and wipes something green that is probably aloe vera over my wound. The aloe vera works magic, and the pain begins to subside as do my tears. I spend the afternoon on that window seat watching the birdfeeder from the kitchen window due to the sting and immobility.
Bob Barker flashes across the television screen telling the whole audience of the wonderful prizes that await them if they can only guess the right price. I’m sitting on my grandparent’s large oak bed with my younger sister. My grandma sits in a large black chair resembling something from a dentist office because she can’t sit up by herself anymore. She laughs in a weird way that sounds like a cross between hysterical sobs and hiccups. She can’t talk anymore: ALS is taking her life. After months of praying for her recovery, my family has made this trip because the doctor says that she might die any day. My mom told us to keep my grandma company while she makes lunch in the kitchen. I try to be the dutiful daughter who cares.
I hate being in that room with my grandma. She scares me. The sickness has turned her into someone less capable than my three-year-old sister. What used to be a plump woman with big speckles has been reduced to a withering human who can only wait for death to come. She used to comfort her family when needed, and now she cried when she found out that she could no longer carve the Thanksgiving turkey as a result of her disease. I don’t like being around someone who makes concrete the trials that I have always known to be abstract.
My mom called us into lunch. I look at my stationary grandmother and tell her that I will come back after I eat lunch. As I sit in the kitchen, my Lipton chicken noodle soup does not taste good. Soup reminds me of sick people. I slowly spin around in the worn swivel chairs that sit against the breakfast bar. After lunch I quickly run downstairs avoiding my mom to join my siblings watching a movie in hopes that I wouldn’t be forced into the upstairs guestroom to watch The Price is Right.
Ten years ago, I ran out of my grandma’s room because watching her suffer made me nauseous. My mom used to pridefully tell my elementary school teachers that I would run at the first signs of trouble. That was when I was ten years old and could barely be blamed for my actions. I recognize now that you can’t make it through life without accepting that there will be some adversity, but I think I’m still afraid. Sometimes I wonder if I would act any differently if that day with my grandma had been yesterday. I am afraid that fear of suffering will someday keep me from having the ability to care for those that have cared for me when I am in need.
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