Personal Narrative: Jewish Elementary School

I went to a private, jewish elementary school. There were about 40 kids in my grade, and we were all white. The school raised us to believe in God, and only the jewish religion. No one really questioned it, because it was the only way of living we knew. Everything was perfect for every family, except for mine. In second grade my dad was diagnosed with cancer. At the time I was too young and ignorant to really know what that meant, I just knew that it was bad. Two years later he passed away. For a nine year old, death is something they can comprehend, but not actually understand.

After my dad passed away I didn’t go to school for a week. Even though I was too young to really know what had happened, I had a lingering feeling that I just couldn’t exterminate. I was sad, and scared of being judged by my classmates. I came back to school the next week, and I don’t really remember a lot about it. It was just a normal week at school. My mom tried to take me to a grief support group but I hated it. Talking about it only seemed to make it worse. Eventually over time I just started to not focus on it and direct my attention to other things. …show more content…
I play a lot of basketball, and had games every weekend. Since my mom was working, I didn’t really have anyone to drive me to games, or even my friends houses. I had to call my teammates and ask for rides, and become more independent. I developed a lot of skills most kids don’t have. Also just common sense, which a lot of kids lack. Also my level of understanding of the world was greatly accelerated through this event. Dealing with death is a tough thing to do. It’s not really about what you do when It happens, it is about how you grow and learn to live with that person not being here