In the spring of May 29, 2013 around the same time my sixth-grade year was finishing up my grandparents had thrown me a birthday party. The majority of the day I spent my time drifting off in my classes and wondering about what my grandparents had in store for me when I arrived home later that afternoon. When the bell rang at 4:15 to dismiss the middle schoolers I was confronted with rain that hit the ground so hard it splashing back up in your face when it hit a puddle. The car ride home to my grandparent's home in Dover, Florida was silent and I knew there was something wrong, but I didn’t ask and my grandparents didn’t tell me. Thirty minutes later we pulled up onto the dirt road and were met with party chairs thrown around in the dirt and birthday banners that were previously hung up that were now laying on top of the chairs. Quietly, in a soft tone, my grandmother explained to me in Spanish that there was an argument between the adults and the mess in front of us was the outcome.

Later that evening I was seated on top of the cold marble counter top in the kitchen, listening to the rain hitting the windows while fiddling with the damp ends of my floral dress. The water on my arms prickled my skin and gave me goosebumps, but at the moment I didn’t care. I didn’t care that I could get sick the next day or that the vanilla ice cream was dripping off the side of the counter into a puddle onto tile below. I could taste the bitter sadness of neglect and I could feel the infectious hatred that plagued my family. On top of that, I could hear my grandparents muttering in the next room about my “ruined birthday”. After a few minutes of discussion my grandparents came into the kitchen and taught me a very important lesson in life that I still live by.

I believe that giving forgiveness is a much higher road to take than to falter to hating the people that do you wrong, the lesson I was taught was created from that unfortunate birthday party that was crashed by a bunch of adults in my family who didn’t seem to know how to get along because of he-said-she-said that wasn’t even true. In a large group of individuals, it's not rare for people to create rumors for excitement but there shouldn’t be a “they” and an “us” when it comes to one family, because essentially that’s not a family. It may be easier to hate but it ruins families and it's not fair for the children who were born into it.