Have you ever felt like you have so much to say but you can’t let it out? well, welcome to my life.

Beep - beep - beep - beep - beep…..

I hear my alarm wake me up in the morning as I stare up at my ceiling thinking about all of my life choices and what I did to come to this precise exact moment.

As I take my first breath of that morning air, I start to wonder what I’m having for breakfast, thinking of the delicious mouth-watering french toast my mom makes as my stomach grumbles with hunger as I haven’t eaten since yesterday at lunch.

After 3 minutes of my alarm clock ringing, I finally turn it off and decide to get ready for school.

As I’m doing the finishing touches of my makeup, I hear a knock at my door. My older brother Erik opens the door. “ Hurry up dumb*ss”. 

“Good morning to you too”, I say as Erik jumps on my bed and lands on his back. 

“Hey! I just made that!” 

“Oops…”, Erik says as he jumps off my bed and tries his best to smooth it out.

I shake my head and laugh.

As Erik walks out the door he says, “Hurry up, mom’s making french toast”.

As soon as he says that he closes the door and runs for it as he knows that french toast is my favorite.

I jump out of my desk chair and start sprinting to the door. I ran out of my room as fast as I could to reach the stairs.

As I reach the stairs, I see Erik at the bottom of the stairs sticking his tongue out at me and saying “HAHA I GOT TO THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS FIRST”. 

“He’s such a little kid”, I say under my breath while shaking my head and rolling my eyes at him.

As I head down the stairs I smell my mom’s delicious homemade French toast

 I know what you’re thinking it’s just french toast but to me, it's so much more than that. Whenever my mom makes french toast it’s happiness, she’s always in a good mood whenever she makes it, it’s comfort food to my family. 

When my mom and dad got divorced, mom wasn’t handling it well, nobody was. Dad was in rehab trying to get better and mom was handling it in her own way, let’s just put it in that way. Mom and dad got divorced 7 years ago when I was 9 and Erik was 10. My dad was an alcoholic,  he would come home all drunk after work every single day. Mom was scared that something would happen to dad and would tell him to stop drinking cause he was gonna get hurt and mom was right, something did happen… 

Dad got in a really bad car crash and wrecked his car. He was driving home after work drunk as usual when another speeding car crashed into him. He was in the hospital for 3 weeks. After that, dad got scared and decided to go to rehab and he did go for a few weeks until one day he caved and mom decided to divorce him. After the divorce, dad went back to rehab because the judge wouldn’t let him go around me or my little sister who was just a baby when that all happened. Dad finally after so long got clean, he’s been clean for about 6 years. We’re all really proud of him. My older brother Erik, little sister Ashley, and I see him and stay with him for 3 days every week.

Back to reality, as soon as I go to the kitchen my mom says "Buenos Dias". 

“Buenos Dias”, I responded back to her. She hands me a plate of the most perfect warm mouth-watering french toast I have ever seen. I take my first bite and I smile. Erik looks at me and says, “What are you smiling about? It better not be about a boy.”

Mama scoffed at him and hit him in the back. She said, “Tu hermana no está sonriendo por un niño! Está feliz porque ama la comida.”

“She’s not wrong”, I say. Erik looks at me and shakes his head while I take a big bite of my french toast.

After 10 minutes, Erik comes up to me and says, "Are you done?" 

“Yup”, I say while taking my last bite. 

Erik looks at me and says, “Come on, hurry up, we’re going to be late for school.” 

“Alright, alright”, I say with an annoyed look on my face.

I put my plate in the sink, thank my ama for the food, and say bye to her and my little sister. My mom takes Ashley to school, while Erik takes me and himself to school. 

The way to school was really quiet. Erik didn’t speak to me on the ride to school, which isn’t unusual for him, but normally Erik is really talkative and loud. At school, everyone knows who he is, he is one of the popular kids. Compared to me I might seem like the type to be popular but in reality, I have friends who are popular and I have a brother who is popular so I guess I’m kinda popular but not really. I’m popular by connections and by association, everyone knows who I am and I know everyone. That's just how it works. It's been that way since 6th grade. 

I’ve already been at school for about 2 hours and I hate it. I don’t know about you but I don’t really like school. I like my friends seeing different people at school and hanging out with them but I don’t actually like going to my classes well, maybe just one or two. Mr. G’s class is probably my favorite, he teaches history. I'm not a big big fan of history but I like it, I like learning about all the different things that happened in the past. Honestly, I’m a bit of a nerd but don’t tell anybody

The bell rings for class and I’m on my way to the bathroom. Mostly every day before class starts I  go to the bathroom and hang out there for a little bit. I fix my hair and I say hi to my friends before class. Today my friend Natalie said my outfit was so cute and I agree it was simple but very cute. I am wearing a black tank top crop top, my medium wash baggy jeans, my blue GAP sweater, and my black converse. I make my way to class as the bell rings, now normally when the bell rings I would run or try to hurry up to get to class faster but I don’t. I don’t know why but Mr. G doesn’t mark me tardy. He never does no matter how late I get to class. He doesn't ever seem to mark me down, and I mostly come late to that class every single day.

As I walk in I say I’m here and head to my seat and Mr. G nods it’s a bit of a routine it happens every time I have his class. I head to my seat and take out my computer and start working. After a while, I get bored and fix my mascara.

After class, I meet my friends in the bathroom and we head to lunch. Today was honestly a pretty boring day. After school, I meet Erik at his car and we sing and jam out to the different songs playing on the radio. Today we’re picking up Ashley from school. She’s a first-grader. 

When I see Ashley run over to me I think to myself it must be nice to be as sheltered and protected from the outside world as she is.

Hi, munchkin I tell Ashley as she runs into my arms. “Hi Lani,” she says. Come on, let's go to the car. 

I hold her hand as we walk to the car.

When we get to the car I open the door for her and help her put on her seat belt. “ Hi Lee, how was your day,” Erik says

“ Good, my teacher gave us gummi worms because we’re learning about them,” says Ashley.

“ Cool,” Erik says,  Hey you want Mcdonald’s Erik tells me as he looks at me with a smile as I smile back at him. “ 10 piece chicken nuggets,  large fries, and a large drink, right” Yeah how’d you know I tell him knowing that we get McDonald’s at least a few times a week. “ Wait let me guess, Dr. Pepper, no wait  Sprite.” Yeah, I only get Dr. Pepper when we go to Taco Bell, Erik and me saying that at the same time. Ohhh and order extra buffalo sauce I told him because they never give us enough “ alright”, thank you I tell him   “mhm” he says.

When we got home I noticed a white truck outside. “Dad” both me and Eric say at the same time.

Ashley rushes to the door “hurry, hurry open it before he leaves” ok, ok but relax he’s not gonna leave. I told her.

I open the door and Ashley rushes inside, and as soon as she sees dad she runs to him and screams “ DAD” and jumps on him. 

“ WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, Slow down there munchkin,” says dad

Hi Dad, I say give him a hug.

“Hi Lani, I’ve missed you,” dad says.

I’ve missed you too, I say, staring at him in awe.

My dad is 5 ft 8, he has brown hair, big brown eyes, and the warmest smile, he’s not bad looking either. If you were to look at him at first glance you would have never thought that he was an alcoholic, but in his defense, he does look really nice, and he is. 

My dad is my rock he always has been, ever since I was a little girl I would always remember my dad being there for me. He would take me to the park every single day, he

would come home from work and I would run to him and give him the biggest hug ever and ask him about his day, but my favorite thing about him is his stories. Yes, his stories. My dad is from Guadalajara, Jalisco which is in Mexico if you didn’t know. Growing up my dad would tell me stories about his childhood, how he would play on the train tracks with his friends, the different places he would visit with his dad,  and how he would help my grandpa make wooden toys. I loved it, it was my favorite thing in the world. Even now I enjoy listening to my dad reminiscing about his childhood and his life in Mexico, even about his life here in the United States, about his life before me and my siblings. 

What are you doing here pa, don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that you are here but I thought that we weren’t going with you until next week. “ There’s something I need to tell you guys,” dad says. “Ashley, can you please come with me please,  let’s go get ice cream.” mom tells Ashley, “ ok,” Ashley says. 

Dad waits for mom and Ashley to leave, as soon as the car drives off the driveway dad sits down on the couch.

“Are you drinking again?” says Erik

“No”

Dad stays quiet

“Then what, what’s going on? ” Erik says harshly

“ Do you guys remember when you guys were little and I would come home from work and you guys would come running up to me jumping in my arms, dad says laughing, reminiscing about the past.”

Yea, I remember that Erik and I would always race to get to you first, but what has that to do with anything

“Nothing… Absolutely nothing dad pauses and stays quiet.

I just wanted you guys to think of a good memory of me before I tell you what I have to tell you, he says.”

Dad what’s going on, you're scaring me. What do you need to tell us? I am all worried.

“You guys have to understand that, I was scared ok, I didn't know what to do.”

“ What did you do,” says Erik sternly.

“ About a year ago I had a heart attack dad starts saying as I cut him off…. Why didn't you tell us, I didn't want you guys to worry about it. I told your mother not to tell you guys.

“Wait mom knew”, says Erik.

“Yes, Erik, she knew. that’s not all. A few months after my heart attack I started feeling sick, so I went to the hospital. They didn’t know what was wrong with me until they did a cat scan on me. They found a tumor.”

WHAT!!!, I say.

“YOUR LIEING, HOW LONG”, Erik says screaming at dad.

“ERIK, CALMATE, “dad says.

“HOW LONG, “Erik says giving dad the death scare.

“2 months! “dad says, yelling at Erik

Are you happy, I tell Erik

So what were you gonna do, wait until you were on your death bed to tell us? I say

Mija no, I swear, dad, says

“When I first found out I was in shock, I didn’t know what to do. The doctors said it was a good thing I found out early, I would have a higher chance of… dad stays quiet looking at me with tears in his eyes.”

Of what, survival. I say

Thinking back I released I should have never said that.

“Yes, mija, survival, but the doctors were wrong. At first, the medicine would work. I would go to chemo every day like normal as I have for the last two months. The doctors told me I was on a good path that the tumor had stopped growing and there was a possibility that I could have surgery to remove it,  but one day the medicine just stopped working. “

“What do you mean it just stopped working,” my brother Erik asked.

“It stopped working, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY, I HAVE NO POWER,  NO CONTROL OVER IT! If I did, I would have never had cancer in the first place, because that’s what it is. I HAVE CANCER. I ONLY HAVE TWO MORE MONTHS TO LIVE” my father says yelling at me and Erik.

We all stay quiet……..