Wednesday, July 28, 2010

"Losing Family"


Written by
Sarah Saldana
June 24, 2010
[Inspired by the movie Finding Forester]
"Losing Family"

“Family: My idea of the definition of family, a circle of people committed to your well being, and who have become dedicated to working together to better each-others future reaching the goal of obtaining one‘s growth in society. “

Losing family, is never easy but often the reality is that we could never really be prepared. I’ve often thought about all the family I’ve lost. There was a time I’ve lost my two uncles, my grandfather, and my cousin all within the same time frame. My uncle Julian had serocis of the liver, My uncle Raymond aka Mo’ had cancer, my cousin “baby“, well she had a rare skin disease that made her skin shrink and it shrunk and cut off her oxygen. That was how Cousin “Baby” passed away [as far as I‘ve been told].

The sad truth is that none of my family ever spent enough time getting to know each other. I don’t even really know if my cousins real name was “Baby” I was told it was. My grandpa “Tony, Antonio, Anthony” died from choking on a pastrami vein and he had a heart attack. I never got to go to any of their funerals, other than my Grandfathers, however I was always invited to the wake, right before they did the burial and even if I had gone I probably wouldn’t recall or remember it.

I went to my grandfathers wake just before they buried him his son in law’s son was about 3 or 4 years old and told me that his father had killed my grandpa. I was in shock and did not know where to turn with that news, “what could you do?” I mean his son had witnessed his father do the himlic on my grandpa. And the son in law had fallen back because my grandpa was over weight and he couldn’t save him. When my Grandfather passed away it was like losing a father. He has been the only male figure in my life and I would not really see him as often as I would have liked too.

People come into our lives everyday and we never expect them to suddenly go. And for some odd reason, one way or another we lose them, to a death, an illness, or just with time they fade away and then we create new friends and new families.

There has been one occasion that I have worked with someone and they slipped and fell in our office bathroom, and because of that they have passed away. He was our “Office Grandpa” Another male figure in my life, a detective whom I grew up with my mentor passed away from cancer.

There have been many people in my life because I have never had a “Real” father in my life, try to take the place and fill the void of what was missing. Rather than being honest with me and just saying they’d be there for me. I often think how it would be when the time comes how it would feel to lose them too. What then we move on to make more family and the best thing about that is that we chose who we call family.

I learned this as a young girl when my first “so called” best friend was an adopted child. She had been abused by her mother you never really know to what extent abuse can be categorized as the “worst case”. Because I always thought her case was worst, when she would sit with me and talk about how her mother used to twist her hair with a knife on the kitchen floor, as the story goes. She lost not only her real mother and I don’t mean that losing family in the sense has to only be when someone passes on, but rather in her situation she lost a mother because her mother had lost her mind. She lost a father because her father never wanted a child let alone deal with the mother. Then her adopted mother was another woman who I knew who had passed away from cancer.

My reason writing this blog, is because we lose people everyday to the extent of someone passing away and someone who just moved on with their own life, we lose the friends we met in high school, we lose touch with our elementary teachers, and we move on when we obtain new jobs or move into a new home, we lose family, everyday.

“I have lost many family members in my life sometimes even three or more at a time.” #LoveEachother !!

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