How Adversity Changed My Life

Tragedies, misfortunes, and disasters can alter the course of one’s existence. While existing only a fifth of my projected life span, illustrations of adversity have begun to shape my life. Maya Angelou clarified adversity best when she stated, “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.” Not a day goes by that I do not fail and succeed in some way, yet the lessons learned from the medley of failures and successes blend to create the ink in which I paint my Mona Lisa. My first adverse situation presented itself in the form of illness. At the age of eight, my sister was tackled by Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare bone cancer. Initially, she was given only a 20% chance of survival with no promise of tomorrow. Therefore, I strive to live every day with the mentality it could be my last. Despite my young age, I was acutely aware of the agony my family endured from having her life essentially put in limbo. The cancer caused years of my childhood to be without a mother, father, and sister, and I subsequently became known as “the brother of the girl with cancer.” Nonetheless, since the origin of this misnomer, it has been my mission to not only forge a name for myself, but to also build my own identity. …show more content…
I was shuffled amongst family members while my parents dealt with the looming possibility of losing their daughter. While other children’s parents were attending their ballgames and parent-teacher conferences, my parents were dealing with doctors and hospitals. When my family was at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, not a day went by without conversing, but weeks went by without meeting. It was not until later that I learned the guilt they felt for leaving me added to the burden they were already