Building My Identity

I often find it absurd how many search for a definition of character, when in the realm of things it’s each individual’s job to define it. Therefore, I often like to compare one’s identity to a house. You see, the memories we have are the foundation, the wisdom we acquire makes up the house, and our passions give the house character. Likewise, you can never stop improving a house, just as you are never really finished reinventing yourself as a person either. Thus, the affair that helped me “build my house,” and construct my identity, was when I witnessed my father’s journey through entailing a major heart surgery. It was November 21, 2012, I was twelve years old, and my mother and I had rushed to the hospital. Its monochromatic, hostile interior was veiled by a drab grey color, and a pungent odor patrolled the halls. I walked into the cold room to find my father lying there motionless. He slowly pried his eyes open as the doctor strode in, and explained how my father was to entail a Triple bypass heart surgery. “It is a very serious open heart surgery procedure that is done when the blood vessels that feed the heart are too clogged to function properly. Fortunately, the mortality rate is low, but the fact that he was a previous alcoholic, heavy …show more content…
I vividly remember looking around at everybody perpetually and constantly glancing up, with a sense of loss and insecurity, and with a vague stress of painful anticipations. I was no different. Finally, eight and a half hours later, an intangible chill spiraled down my backbone, and tears cascaded down my face as I glanced at my father; he looked awful. Wires and tubes of all sort invaded his face, his eyes remained shut, and his every breath was amplified by the many beeping machines that encircled the room. I was pained by the idea that he was confronting a constant excruciating pain, and there was nothing I could do to stop