One event that happened to me in my life that I have learned something from is the deaths of my Nana and Papa. I was 12 when my Papa died and I was 13 when my Nana died.

Three years ago my Papa died, he had been fighting cancer ever since I was four years old. Two years ago my Nana died. She had a bad car accident and when they brought her to the hospital, we found out she had brain cancer. She later died two days before my birthday.

Years before my Nana died, I was doing things to get my mind off of my Papa’s death. Hanging out with the wrong people and doing things I shouldn’t have been doing, I started fighting because I had a lot of pent up aggression and I was upset. I started arguing with my mom and causing fights with her when she would ask me to do a simple task or favor. I was still apart of the football team but it wasn’t really a big part of my life so I was missing practices and being stupid.

When my Nana died I was even more upset and angry because I never got to say goodbye to her and tell her that I loved her. I was busy being with my so called “friends” because I thought that was more important than being in the hospital with my family sitting next to my Nana, talking to her, helping her through what she was going through.

The death of my Nana, to me, was like a wake up call, I saw my mom cry for the first time from all the stress she was going through and the arguments and fighting I was causing. my family started going down hill we would argue, we soon found out my uncle was doing things to release the pain of losing his parents because he was the baby out of the brothers and sisters. I took a step back and saw what was happening to my family but also my self, I took a hard look in the mirror and saw what doing all the bad things were doing to me.

After looking hard at myself in the mirror for a couple weeks I learned that there are better ways to deal with the pain and anger I was feeling. Football season came around and it started being a big part of my life. That’s how I would get my anger out and learn how to cope with things going on around me instead of falling back onto the wrong crowd of people. I got rid of all the so-called “friends.” I started to stop arguing with my mom and started doing the right things. After dedicating my life to football I was moved up to varsity now it is my dream to play in the NFL and be a starter.

From the deaths of my grandparents and seeing my family fall apart, I learned that there is always a better solution than falling into the wrong crowd and doing bad things. My advice to people struggling with a similar story or just upset and angry is to find something like a hobby or a sport that you like and dedicate yourself to it and be the best at it. It gets the pain and anger out and also gets your mind off of things