I’ve always wanted to be great.
I mean, everyone always wants to be great.

I would browse webpages looking at celebrities and soon-to-be celebrities gawking at the cameras. I didn’t feel like a loser, but I definitely felt insignificant. Translucent skin, pearly white teeth, and seemingly perfect hair… envy lingered in my thoughts. I was taught to be grateful for all that I had, for all that I had become, which evidently was not much.

My name is Yaa or Naomi, if that’s what you’re more comfortable with calling me. I am from Ghana, specifically the capital, Accra. I was born into a very loving family, two parents and two siblings, one brother and one sister. On the surface, we looked happy… we seemed to have it altogether. Yet, if you scratched the surface of the Polaroid that hung on refrigerators, there the problems lay. My mom, behind her flawless skin, hid the fact that she was dying from breast cancer. My dad, who ran a church, secretly suffered from type one diabetes. Both of my siblings were also tainted in more ways than one. The number of lovers my brother has is ridiculous. He sleeps with one, then moves onto another, and then moves onto another. I can never distinguish between the different females he brings home. They all seem to have the same voluptuous figure, full lips, and poor etiquette. My sister suffers from deep depression. Her last marriage, number three, ended badly. She claims that she is getting better, but the more I see her, the worst she looks. As for me, I deal with a number of internal problems: anxiety, addiction, and self-esteem. There is another issue that I learned about recently, but I am still in shock.

I have been diagnosed with cancerous brain tumor.

A few months ago, I was a happy teenager. I hung out with my friends, went to outings, crushed on cute guys, what have you. Then one day, something in my brain just went ballistic. I woke up, and I was worried about everyone and everything. Yelling, I forced my parents to drive me to New York to visit my sister. I wanted to make sure she wasn’t dead because she lived in the Bronx; and at that time, the city was more unsafe than ever. When we arrived, I apparently jumped on her with all of my might and nearly toppled her over. I have no idea why I did that; I can’t even recall doing that. I start sobbing all over her, begging her to come home with us, and declaring to her that it was safer back home. My parents were horrified to say the least, and rushed me to the nearest hospital. On the stretcher, I fussed and cursed until they put me to sleep with something. The next time I woke up, I saw a blurry vision of my parents, some church folks, and two nurses. “She’s up.” I remembering hearing a voice say. Everyone smiled, but I anxiously looked around and started to scream- loudly. No one knew what to do so everyone left immediately except my dad. He held my hand and, with tears in his eyes, asked me what was wrong. I turned my head to look at him, and then snatched away my hand away from his. For a brief moment, I had absolutely no idea who he was. He appeared to me like a dream, and I did not know if he was real or an illusion. Terrified, I began to cry… hard. That’s all I remember from that day, and after that experience, I have never been the same.

This is my story. A story of a dead man walking. The Bucket List.