I never thought my life could change so fast. I never thought I’d actually think to myself ‘Why couldn’t this have happened to someone else?’ I don’t wish things upon other people but when you go through such bad times in your life, you can’t help but to wish you weren’t stuck in such a situation.

My senior year has been filled with highs and lows. Not because of what’s going on at school but because of what has occured at home for the past four months. Senior year was supposed to be the best year for me, but it’s actually been the worst.

My dreams usually shape ideals, and family shapes the beliefs we grasp so strongly. That’s why I tend to write a lot about my challenges, because the challenges I’ve faced throughout my life make the person I am today.

But life doesn’t really emphasize how to overcome challenges along the way. The ones that may hinder us from achieving our goals in this world, especially when the things that keep us from achieving our goals are our loved ones.

I never thought I’d say it, but I actually miss being 12 years old when I didn’t need to worry about anything. When I didn’t need to worry about growing up in a matter of a few months, because everything at that time seemed fine.

But maybe it wasn’t.

When the doctor told my dad they found a large mass on top of his right kidney growing for several years, it was shocking to the whole family. My family and I never expected my dad to have a deadly disease at 47 years old, especially stage four cancer. The whole situation felt like a joke.

My whole family went under a depression stage for a while. Knowing my dad was the main source of our income, I began to overthink what would happen if my dad were to die. What would happen to my mom, sisters and I?

I became mad about the news more than depressed. I started to become an angry person. I would snap at the smallest things and always wanted to be alone. I felt like the world was against me. I was angry at the world for putting my family in one of the hardest situations of our lives.

I know you can’t choose what happens to you in life, but you can always choose how you react to it. As months went on, I began to think maybe this is a test to see how strong our family’s faith is.

But I know God doesn’t make mistakes. And I think that’s what has been keeping me going these past few months. I know this will now change everything, including how far I’ll be from my family in college.

It’s sad to say that this was the situation that brought my family closer together, because I’ve really come to understand nothing in this life is promised. Your life can change unexpectedly and you have to react to it in the fairtest way to hold your loved ones together.

But things do happen for reasons that we will never know. Miracles do happen and they’ve happened to my family before. Perhaps this is a test to challenge my faith. But that doesn’t stop me from telling my dad I love him before I leave the house.