It's hard to overlook negativity. It's hard to ignore the bad things, because it seems these days as if there is more bad than good. It's extremely difficult to keep your head up when the rest of the world telling you not to. There are tons of influences that play into this. Now, I'm not an expert on this by any means. Nor will I proceed throughout this essay to act like I am one. But, I believe that in life strength is a really important value to have. Your strength can be your guide, leading you through things when it really does seem like the only option is giving up. Sometimes, strength is not being able to stand up and scream that you made it, but giving a little cheer at the end of the day, whispering to yourself, "you did it".

It started out to be a really good day, actually. It was a Thursday, and my friends and I were in math class. It was the second to last class of the day, and my sixth grade self was really excited for school to get out. As I turned around to see if anybody was in the resource center behind me, I noticed there was in fact someone. And not just someone, but my brother. He gestured for me to get up and leave. He told me to get my stuff, that we were leaving. I thought, maybe we're going somewhere fun? I walked, quite happily, back to the locker room and I packed up my things. My legs carried me back to the library, where my brother was standing impatiently. The look in his eyes was indescribable, almost scared? To this day I still can't explain it. I asked him what happened, and he told me.

"Baba had a heart attack."

Now, before I go on. Let me explain something. When I was two years old, my mom got divorced from my biological father. He had some really serious drug and alcohol problems. When I was four, my mom got remarried, to my the man that I call my father today. He is the only father I have ever known, and never have I ever thought of him as my stepfather. Anyways, I hardly saw my biological father. I think it was once a month, maybe less. We had somewhat of a relationship, but it wasn't extensive. We called him Baba, because he is Lebanese, as are we, and Baba means father in Arabic. He developed cancer about a year prior to this day when he had a heart attack.

I felt my stomach drop to my feet. Literally drop to my feet. Then a million and one questions began to run through my head. I felt myself blindly walking through the halls of school and out to the car where my mom and dad were. The whole ride there, they tried to make conversation with me, but I couldn't get a word out if I tried. I guess at this point I didn't know how serious it was, but I was scared. Fear took over me and I became the most scared I had ever been in my life. We got to the hospital, and of course his entire family had taken up camp in the waiting room. Now, their emotional state was less than healthy, and it always had been. At all costs did we try to avoid them. Their profligacy and over the top behavior was extremely hard to be around, so we just weren't. Anyway, we went into the hospital room where he was, and my life was forever changed.

Basically, I was faced with a person falling to pieces. He had little consciousness and reality of what was actually going on, and I was surprised by the fact that he remembered who my brother and I were. He had all these weird machines hooked up to him; it was hardly an easy sight to see. Actually, it was totally and completely the hardest thing I've ever had to do, sit in that hospital room and talk with him like he wasn't dying. Though I barely knew him, I couldn't handle the fact that I was sitting in a room speaking with someone who couldn't even fully comprehend the fact that they were dying. It hit me the hardest when he began to bring up times when we used to go to the movies or to dinner; times that, little did we know, would seem so heartbreaking in the future.

After that day in the hospital, we visited a few more times. He was finally moved to hospice, and two days later, he died. To say the funeral was incredibly painful would be an understatement. I can't tell you how many people came up to me and told me how great of a guy he was. Is that what they do at every funeral? Do they try to hit you with the words that might just break your heart the most? Of course this person wants to be remembered. But it didn't seem right, it just didn't. The look of sadness in all these peoples' eyes, it doubled, tripled, quadrupled my sadness... and there was so much of it and it was just everywhere and I didn't know where to put it all.

I have come to learn that if you are down, stay down for a while. Don’t try to get back on your feet until you are prepared to stand. Don’t get up until you have completely learned why you fell. There are a number of possibilities why you fell, and don't even try to stand up until you realize why. But let me tell you something- there is one person there for you. One person. It’s the same person that cleans up your vomit and wipes your nose and deals with the headaches and stomachaches. It’s the same person who brushes your teeth and brushes your hair and gets dressed every single day. They tend to your wounds and they pick your crying seld up out of bed despite the fact that you never want to get up. The same person that tucks you into bed and holds you in the night and tries so hard to fight off the darkness and tries embraces the light. And this person is you. It’s always been. Don’t get off the ground because you see somebody that maybe you could possibly rely on. Wipe your face, pick your head up, get that dust of your shoulders, and for god's sake, get up for yourself. Because you can. It’s the least of what you owe yourself.