What Makes You?

When your father is a prominent figure in a tiny town, it's considered taboo to talk about his imperfections. My mother assures me that it does not matter if it is to condemn him or deem him your saving grace, it is just unacceptable. But I cannot be truly understood as a driven, ambitious,, and determined key piece in the puzzle of America's future if I am not allowed to speak about the path that led me to embrace these qualities.

After my parents decided to give trial separation a go, I rebelled like crazy. Gone was my mother's straight A, straight edge, happy-go-lucky girl and standing in her place was a sullen angry thirteen year old. Desperate to get her baby back on track, we began having family dinners with my father. One night he asked to use our shower, mom consented, and we went to bed.

I woke in the middle of the night to a house teeming with police and my mother retching in the front yard. I still remember peering under my door and seeing all their feet, and hearing the awful squawk of their radios. My younger brother and I were quickly whisked away to a relatives home where the adults in our lives attempted to shield us from our father's attempted suicide.

Not long after, I stood crying in the funeral home parking lot with my father's bandaged arms around me, because just when I thought the worst of my life was behind me my grandmother passed away, after a long battle with colon cancer. I told him I was giving up, everything was just too hard, and now my inspiration was gone. The life of a vagabond actually seemed a little appealing. But he didn't let my pity party go on for long. My father told me that he'd had to lose it all to realize he hadn't really lost anything. It was at his gentle nudging, sometimes not so gently nudging, that I picked up my old writing hobby. And it was with his new found knowledge that it dawned on me. I want to be a journalist.

I won't pour sticky sweet euphemisms on the truth, because that doesn't make it go away. Losing my grandmother, almost losing my father, and the shock of it all at once let to this epiphany. Everyone must endure hardship and pain. It's the tough stuff that makes you. How would you ever know if you were truly happy and satisfied if you didn't know what it felt like to be down and out? The most important lesson my father taught me -- what is sunshine without the contrasting rain?