What makes a hero, a hero? A hero is someone who no matter how bad the situation is, always thinks about others before themselves. A hero is someone who will rise to any challenge with a smile on their face. A hero is someone who should inspire you to live a better life and always look at the positive side of things. I have only met one person like that in my life, my Great Aunt Alice.
Aunt Alice has always been the bravest person I’ve ever known. At age 16 she moved to New York all by herself. She had to start a new school with no family, no money, and no knowledge about the city around her. She exceeded in her classes and graduated early. A few years later, she married her high school sweetheart, Douglass Dawson. She got a job in sales …show more content…
Turns out the present wasn’t just for my grandma, it was for me too. While she was visiting, I learned all about her, her life, her interests, and most importantly her diseases. She told me that she was recently diagnosed with brain and lung cancer and how it was affecting her and her family.
The next 2 months must have been extremely hard for her but that didn’t stop her from helping everyone she could. She continued her part-time volunteer job at the church where she would work for 4 hours per day, continued helping out with a variety of charities, and called my grandma daily. When she came home for Christmas, we could tell she was getting worse only by the paleness of her face and how skinny she was getting. Her laugh was still her laugh, and her smile was still her smile. She hadn’t changed a bit.
She talked to me for hours that night. She told me stories of the children from the charity she worked with. She told me about her travels and her favorite books. She told me lessons she has learned and how there are so many left for her to learn. One quote from that night has stuck with me for years. She said to me, “Cait, no matter what gets in your way, or the boundaries you face, never stop doing what you love or seeing the people you love most.” I try to think about that when going through my everyday
Aunt Alice has always been the bravest person I’ve ever known. At age 16 she moved to New York all by herself. She had to start a new school with no family, no money, and no knowledge about the city around her. She exceeded in her classes and graduated early. A few years later, she married her high school sweetheart, Douglass Dawson. She got a job in sales …show more content…
Turns out the present wasn’t just for my grandma, it was for me too. While she was visiting, I learned all about her, her life, her interests, and most importantly her diseases. She told me that she was recently diagnosed with brain and lung cancer and how it was affecting her and her family.
The next 2 months must have been extremely hard for her but that didn’t stop her from helping everyone she could. She continued her part-time volunteer job at the church where she would work for 4 hours per day, continued helping out with a variety of charities, and called my grandma daily. When she came home for Christmas, we could tell she was getting worse only by the paleness of her face and how skinny she was getting. Her laugh was still her laugh, and her smile was still her smile. She hadn’t changed a bit.
She talked to me for hours that night. She told me stories of the children from the charity she worked with. She told me about her travels and her favorite books. She told me lessons she has learned and how there are so many left for her to learn. One quote from that night has stuck with me for years. She said to me, “Cait, no matter what gets in your way, or the boundaries you face, never stop doing what you love or seeing the people you love most.” I try to think about that when going through my everyday