June 5 2011

Growing up I have always spent my summers in Mexico. Spending my summers in Mexico wasn’t a big deal to me because I had built a relationship. As I got older, my relationships remained the same. One of my good friends from Mexico was Mayki. He was just awesome. But on June 5 2011, I experienced something that I have never before.

On June 5, 2011, the day before his 19^th birthday, Mayki passed away. I have never had anybody close to me die. I had just gotten to Mexico that day in time to celebrate his birthday the next day.  He had passed away at 10 a.m. that morning and I didn’t get there till 9 p.m. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. His funeral was right on his birthday. The birthday party he invited me to attend to was his funeral.

Last funeral that I had been to before Mayki’s was my great grandmothers. I was way too young to remember any feelings or memory from that funeral. Mayki’s funeral, in my own way, was my first funeral.

I didn’t take the news too well. There was no possible way that my best friend could have passed away if I had just talked to him 2 days before and he was excited about my visiting. I had just seen him through the webcam too. There was just no way. I felt a ball down my throat and my mom just stood there not knowing what to say; all I could really think about was, “So this is how it feels when you really loose a loved one.”

I woke up that morning and got dressed and went straight to his house. His mother was helpless; she looked numb but wasn’t crying yet. She looked at me and said “Funeral is at 3.” I didn’t respond and I just walked upstairs where his room was and fell asleep. I got woken up by another friend and said it was time.

Attending his funeral was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced. Up to this day I still recall every little detail. It had finally hit me that he was really gone when his casket was in front of my face. It was then when his mom passed out from all the grief. I couldn’t feel my head or body. When he was being buried I felt nothing but grief and every memory I have with him

 Mayki’s death and funeral have affected me in every way, and has changed my perspective in certain ways too. I have learned to cherish every person that I love because you never know when it is their time. You are never too young to do anything. This has been a negative meaningful experience. I hold it dear to my heart. Ever since that funeral, I have learned that it is easy to lose. I have learned to be more appreciative of life and to live life day by day. I up to this day refuse to plan ahead. One day at time. I of course still miss him.

The shooting star and him

 I have always been the one to be interested in looking at the sky. I live on the outskirts of Baytown. Where I live now, the houses are not close together at all. We have a whole acre and a half to ourselves. There are no major lights at night that ever block the stars. You can see them perfectly. I’ve lived here for over 6 years and in 2011 I saw a shooting star for the first time. It was beautiful for a few reasons.

That being my first shooting star is memorable, not because it’s the first I have ever seen, but because I got to experience the sight with a friend who passed away two days later.  My friend would visit me every day right after he got off of work. He rarely ever came inside my house because he would get off of work too late, so we would always look up at the sky. We would point at the different moon phases. Those have always interested me; Specially the Super moon phase. That is when the moon is really huge, it almost looks as big as earth. We couldn’t ever tell when a moon was really a planet, since all the stars where bright and big and small.

The shooting star went way too fast for me to even act on it, but when I pointed at it; all my friend said to me was, “Yes Jojo, I saw that.” Ever since then I see shooting stars every few days. I didn’t know how common and special they are. I do not know if it was just my mind or head, but I could have sworn that I heard a swooshing sound along with the star. Every shooting star now, I hear my friend’s voice and in some way, I feel as if he is there.

Ever since that day, I pay more attention to the sky at night. I think of him and that very shooting star, not knowing that that would be the last night we would get to see the night summer sky together. I look at it and I get lost in my mind. When I see a shooting star now, I have different feelings that run through me. None of them are good, and none of them are bad. I just feel numb now. But I enjoy it.

I feel fortunate enough to be able to see a whole glitter of stars where I live. Ever since I heard that the stars are being blocked by pollution, it is very unfortunate. Maybe the generation after me will never get too see how beautiful the night sky is. But for tonight, I will still be fortunate to be able to have a beautiful sight of what a real night sky is.

Hello, My name is Jojo and I will be your nurse today!

David didn't have an easy childhood. He used drawings to express the way he felt. His childhood was rough.  He didn’t have anybody to lean on or anything when he needed help. Drawing was his only escape.

                When I was a child, I was already sure that I wanted to be a nurse. My parents were able to bless me with all the proper toys that made me feel like I was a nurse.  This started around the age of 5.  When I was 5 years old my sister was 3, she made the perfect candidate to play the sick patient. My parents where always busy planning for my new baby brother’s homecoming. My sister was really one of the only one that was there to play with me. I would always watch the medical shows, especially anything that had to do with the ER. According to my mother, I would watch back to back episodes of the same medical shows, and then I would go off and wake up my little sister just so I could play with her.  My 3 year old sister was very helpful and almost always complied. I as a child always wanted to be the leader. I hated being told what to do. So when my sister was beginning to get older, she too wanted to be nurse, and refused to be the patient anymore. We would argue and fight and pull each other’s hair till I got it my way. When I would play nurse I felt like I was superior to my sister and I got to tell her what was wrong and I would always cure her.

 Dance queen

Another way that I expressed myself as a child was through dancing. I was a handful as a child and I always liked to be active. As a child, I never really watched televise on unless it had to do with medical stuff, and very little cartoons.  Growing up I had a lot of cousins, some were around my age. My cousins would always come over and we would have dance battles. Once again I thought I was the queen of dancing and I always thought I beat them. Dancing was a way that I expressed some fury that I had due to my parents not giving me all the attention I wanted. My brothers and I are close to age so we had to share attention, I wanted it all to myself. So when I danced in front of them it made me feel better. They would say how great I was and to teach them some moves. Of course now that I am older, I wonder if I really did dance great!

When I was 5 years old, I would always get my Barbie dolls and paint all over their faces, I was blessed and always ended up getting new ones. And ofcouse I would also destroy those. I also would tear them apart.

Also I cut my sisters hair at around the same age. It was funny she was only two at the time, my mom was not happy lets just say.

8 years old in Mexico

 

My summers in mexico where always the best. Since I would only see some of my cousins once a year, we would always make the best out of them. Mexico was a much safer place back when I was a child, so going out with my other little cousins was not a problem. We had our "secret" place of hanging out. It happened to be in a little river. We loved going swimming in it. There was also little fish in it and we would try so hard to catch them and we never succeed it. My aunt would pack us sandwhiches and we would be gone for the wholeday. One river day, I had slipped in a rock and the river dragged me, I never went back after that day! 

 

Another day, I joined my cousins for a game of soccer. Well in Mexico people are always just sitting outside their home talking to the neighbors. We decided to play soccer in the street rather than a field. My cousin kicked the ball pretty far and hard. The ball ended up hiting a older lady in the head and we ran. It turns out that that same lady went to my aunts house to charge us for all her headache medicine. My aunt gave her money but could not take her seriously. We were children after all ha.

 

 

My partner in crime and I

When I was younger, I would always spend my summer in Mexico. I had plenty of family that lived there including a few cousins. My grandmother had plants placed all over  her back yard. My cousin and I always found the need to go and mess it up. At first we would go and start tearing off all the leaves, then we would sit down and cut them as if we were cooking. We would do it for hours till one of our mothers came and chased us around with a broom.

With the same cousin, Our mothers weren't paying attention to us so we both got mad, so what we did was get the whole sidewalk wet with a waterhose. The floors where tile so it got real slippery, even the sidewalk was tile. So my aunt came out the house running and she slipped like as if she was on a slip and slide! She actually got hurt ha! We were laughing. My aunt knew we had done it on purpose but she laughed out of embarrasment since the neighbors were also out.