Unconditional Love: The Saga between Family and School

Close your eyes and imagine this:  You’re walking home from school and you have 5 missed calls from your mother.  When you see the screen your eyes widen with fear and curiosity.  The person you’re walking home with asks you if your okay and you don’t answer, just stare into space.  Instantaneously, you decide to call her back as the blackness round you decides to close in.

At one point or another we each have had some monumental moment in our lives that has shifted the way we view the world; a moment that shifts our priorities.

For me, that was the day my grandmother almost died.  Due to an infection that spread, it entered into her blood stream and caused her to get blood poisoning.  While in small quantities it can be curable by medication, her blood was at such an extreme level that the doctors didn’t know how much longer she had.

When I went to see her in the hospital I was devastated.  The woman who became my best friend over the years was hanging onto life by a thin thread; I felt as if the Fates were toying with my emotions.

A collection of old books I found recently in my basement.

It was in that moment that I regretted not spending as much time with her as I should have.  In most cases I opted for finishing a paper or getting homework done instead of going to see her.  I also would read a book instead of sparking a conversation, even if she was sitting right next to me.

She was always yelling at me to “put that stupid book down” and saying that I “overwork myself too much” in her broken English.

I never knew how right she was until now.

In senior year, priorities are everything; school work always comes first, everything else, second.  For a long time in my life I’ve always focused on school.  In a way, I let a social life slip from my hands, opting instead for straight A’s and A +’s.

In my family there’s a saying, “in life you can have a three things: a social life, work and rest”, and always, one needs to suffer.

1. If you have a social life and strong work ethic your health suffers.

2. If you do only work and rest afterwards, you have no social life.

3. If you have a social life and rest, your worth ethic suffers.

I, obviously, am a 2.  Even more so in this year, where my classes are harder and the standards are higher.  It’s been a wake up call; I can no longer cruise through school and get straight A’s on whim.  As a result, I’ve had my share of tears, as have my fellow peers.

In fact, the day after my grandma was admitted to the hospital, I took a test in calculus and received a C+ for the first time in my entire academic career.  Afterwards, an eternity could not describe the amount of time I cried, for both my grandmother and everything that made me, me; for a time, it felt as if everything I knew in the world was slipping out of my hands. 

Both situations have helped me realize, that while grades matter, they aren’t everything in the world.  A letter does not define me.

My grandmother and I at her 50th Anniversary party.

Moving forward this year, I will no longer be a #1, 2, or 3.  I want to be me, the girl who doesn’t care about her grades so much, but lives life to the fullest.  While grades are still important, I am going to spend time with my grandmother and other family members; they are my true priority.

I encourage you to do the same if you have been a workaholic your entire life as well.  You are not the letter or grade your given, you are you.

It’s time everyone got their priorities straight.  Myself included.