I am a firm believer that the worst times in our lives make us the best versions of ourselves. I think that tragedy has the ability to make us stronger and more ready for the unpleasing realities of the world around us. Its unfortunate, but true. People who have to fight through every day, just hoping that the next will somehow be better, those are the people who know what it means to struggle and more importantly, how to overcome. I am no way attempting to glorify or make light of other people's pain. I know how hard dark times can be. I am simply stating that people who experience pain, a deep rooted pain that crushes and breaks you, have more fight and passion for life in their little finger than most people will have in a lifetime.

There are certain moments from our past that stay with us forever. These moments are the ones that taught us to hold on tightly to what matters, and to make the best of life while they are allowed to live it.There is one moment that will stay with me for the rest of my existence, engraved into my mind, stained into the very cloth of my being. Cancer, it was an unfathomable thought, something that you read online and feel bad about from the comfort of your luxurious brown couch, settling down for dinner and T.V. with your family; not something you had to be sat down and told from your teary eyed parents, barely holding it together. I was silent when they told me, I didn't cry, well not then at least. I just sat there, unmoving as the weight of my dark, cracking heart pulled me into the pits of despair. I sat there, paralyzed with sadness and fear. No, it wasn't true, it couldn't be. I couldn't look at her, I wouldn't. Looking at her would make it all true, looking at her would mean that I could accept the fact. So I sat there, my head tilted slightly downward, my stomach refusing to remove itself from my throat, my whole body aching like I had just hit a brick wall. I peered up at my father hoping to find some strength in his composure, but all I found was complete and total obliteration of what little calmness I had left in me. My father is a large man, about as sentimental as a grizzly bear. I had seen him cry only once in my whole life before that point, and as I tilted my gaze up towards his face, that made a second time. I know now how hard that moment must have been for them, watching their children, their reasons for living, in so much pain. Having to deliver news that they knew would destroy our whole worlds, and knowing that there was nothing that they could do to make it better.

The pain I felt at that moment was more intense than anything I had ever felt before. In the three years since my mom was diagnosed. The pain has subsided greatly, knowing that she is now cancer free, but I don't think that pain will ever really go away. Being racked with an unbearable sadness changes you, there is now two way about it. But the strength that I witnessed from my mom and from my family in those months changed me as well. It taught me the true meaning of determination, gave me much needed perspective, and made me appreciate and value life immeasurably. It is when we are at our very darkest, that we learn to find light, and that light will help guide us through the rest of our lives, bringing us back to a place where we can be happy. So, when you are at your lowest, wondering how things could possibly be okay again, you need only remember one thing. If you have the will to pull yourself up and keep going, you will get out of the darkness, and you will come out more tenacious than you thought possible.