Loss is a part of life. It happens to everyone whether it is a pet, father or cousin. Change is also a part of life as you grow and experience life. I have no problems discussing losing my father as it has drastically changed me. I have always felt like it is important to explain to people how I changed from before his death to after. The past two years have not been my easiest as I have had jaw surgery with bad side affects, my parents both got injured, I lost my father and I had multiple car accidents all in my last two years of high school. I’m not using this as an excuse for actions that have gone on in the past or decisions I have made. My past is what has made me who I am today. This is important to me as Father’s Day is coming up -- a day that my family and I dread.

I have realized that before my father passed, I was a different person. I was naive about how the world worked. I thought I had the perfect family and that nothing could go wrong. I was always told that “Everyone has their own problems,” but when I looked at my life, I thought my family was exempt from this lesson. I thought that life was going to go just as it always has been without many problems and that it would end perfectly. Now looking back on it, I see that this was obviously, a very dumb thought and that I was stuck in my own world not looking at my surroundings. I have always liked community service and helping people. I volunteered tutoring refugee children and saw how hard life could be and felt awful in the moment, but when I went home, I went on living my life thinking that I am lucky. I started to look at my surroundings. This became an eye-opening experience, but I really opened my eyes my junior year.

It is a hard story to tell when I explain how I got Bells Palsy my junior year after a jaw surgery gone wrong. I lost confidence and felt lost. I felt like I lost a part of me and this was only two months after I took care of both my parents as my father had a torn ACL and my mom had a broken clavicle all in the same months for recovery. Then the day that my life truly fell apart, on February 16, my father passed away. He was my best friend, mentor and the best support system I could ever ask for. He had attended all of my sporting events, even when I was not the best at sports. He was always there when I needed a hug or just a break from my school. Losing my father has changed me. For the better or worse I will never know.

After losing my father, I learned many lessons.

Lesson one is that life isn’t perfect and everyone has issues in their family. No one has life completely perfect as everyone has something whether it be a sick family member or money issues. How you imagine other people live based on how they portray their lives can be wrong and most of the time is wrong.

Lesson two is “nice or nothing." I always remember my dad saying, "Nice or nothing," when he knew I was upset or angry. He would remind me that I need to think before I speak and to be nice 24/7.

Lesson three is perseverance and discipline. No matter what, it is important that I keep trying no matter how many struggles I go through. I saw him persevere through all struggles of traveling a lot as a child and saw the discipline he put towards working out every day and eating healthy even when injured and on a gluten free diet. He would wake up early to put the horses out, only to work all day and then come home to putting them away. Even on the weekends he didn’t get a break -- working all morning doing stalls and working to take care of the property. He would never ask for help, and he loved the horses and the farm. He did this all for us, so we could have the best of both worlds with me living in the country and going to school in the city. He went to school for 10 years, started his own business and had a Masters in law and architecture, alongside his psychology degree. All his hard work gave me the life that I have now.

Those are only a few of the lessons I learned by watching his life -- there are too many to write about. Throughout my junior and senior year, I learned that life will throw you curve balls, but you have to take it in stride. Those years have made me grow up quicker than I originally planned and forced me to change. If I could go back and change it to have my father back with me, I would, but I can’t. I have learned that in all situations there is a bright side and someone always has it worse. You need to see the bright side of all situations to make it through life happy, even in the worst of times when you feel like your life is falling apart.