Maybe everything around you seems to be falling apart. Maybe you feel like you cannot catch a break. Maybe it is just one of those days, weeks, months, or years…but whatever it is, the universe just seems to be working against you.

In the past two years, my family has survived almost losing my dad to a broken heart valve, my brother almost losing sight due to a detached retina, and my mom having a double mastectomy. While everything seemed to go wrong, everything was an “almost.”

My dad went to the hospital and ended up in emergency open heart surgery. His heart wasn’t working well, his kidneys were failing and his lungs were filling. He was holding on to his life. His recovery was amazing, though. Within 8 weeks he was moving like normal, minus heavy lifting. Within a few months, he was on track to go overseas for work.

My brother almost didn’t go to the eye doctors. He went for a random check-up with our dad and that was when they found multiple holes in both eyes. This was right before his first semester of Law School exams. After a temp surgery, a failed surgery, a successful surgery, two cataract surgeries and about 8 months, he can see semi-normal.

My mom went for her annual mammogram when they found an abnormal lump. She was lucky enough to have caught it in the very early stages. After the double mastectomy, she struggled with taking pain medicine because she doesn’t react well to it. She did very well considering the magnitude of the surgery.

When one thing after another keeps hitting you, it becomes hard to be positive. At first, you are thankful and feel lucky that it wasn’t worse. We didn’t lose our dad/husband. Then things just keep happening and that lucky feeling turns into an unlucky feeling. How unlucky are we that these things just keep happening? Eventually, you hit a breaking point.

People keep asking how you are doing and after all this time, your answer is that you are holding on. Even once you hit that breaking point, you have to hold on to the lucky feeling. Once you let it go, everything gets worse. That is when you start looking down on everything that has happened rather than looking up.

Now that I assume that I’m next in the family to have something go wrong, but I am not worried about it. I am just going to remain positive every day.