Throughout my life, I have faced many challenges that have made me stronger. It’s not the obstacle itself that has shaped me, but how I overcame it. Of course, there are always those certain struggles were you black out and think that there will never be an end to them. Some people might call it losing hope. I see this period of the struggle as a way for miracles to take over.

My grandfather was and always has been a strong man. Whenever I go visit him, those stories of how he took over my grand-mothers heart with his ‘machismo’ always greet me. They are fairly entertaining. He is a dark-skinned man with 3 gray curls on top of his head and a nose that rises as he speaks about his manliness when he was 15 years old. Yup that’s my grandpa. It is as if he is reliving his life in these stories. He talks about how strong and good-looking he was and how every girl would go crazy for him. At the end of these stories, when he is done talking about the immature period of his life, he always ends his stories with how hard-working he is and how besides all the struggles he has faced in life, his hard-work has paid off to the fullest.

Just like every human being though, there comes a period of time that I describe as the ‘breaking point’. This ‘breaking point’ happens to everyone. To the young and especially old. To the hardworking and to the lazy. To the mature and immature. This ‘breaking point’ came to my grandfather when he was 68 years old.

When I was younger, my grand-father had a severe stroke. This stroke caused him to become paralyzed from the neck down. Doctors didn’t even consider therapy because he was already too much of age. Just when my family thought nothing more could go wrong, he suffered a heart attack. It was unbearable how I would walk into his room and hug him, but he just wouldn’t hug back. It was insufferable how he would not want me to see him because he thought I felt sorry for him. I was young, and what hurt me the most wasn’t very much the fact that he wouldn’t be able to walk anymore, but the fact that I would never be able to feel him hugging me back ever again.

You know the feeling you get when you are ignored, when your best friends are hiding something from you, and when you need a hug but there is nobody there to give it to you? Well, that is exactly how I felt. I felt that because my grandpa was paralyzed that he didn’t love me anymore. Yes, my whole family was suffering together, but I felt so lonely.
*****

Despite what the doctors had said, my grandfather is up and walking again. Because of this, I can now receive all the hugs in the world from him. All these hugs replaced all the suffering and pain I went through during that harsh feeling of time. I am so very grateful for all these hugs that I have no one to thank for. Well, of course, I have no one to thank besides miracles. (: