Monologue

I don’t usually like to talk about myself because in my family, I’m the one you turn to when a job needs to be done, I never really felt that I should express my feelings. Or at least that’s what I thought up until Monday July 13th 2009. On this day I received a phone call from my mother. She sounded upset but she didn’t want to tell me what was wrong. What she did tell me was that I should stop what I was doing and to go to my grandmother’s home as soon as possible. When I arrived, I was shocked to see so many people openly crying. I went up to my mother to ask her what happened, and that’s when I received the news that my grandmother had passed away only a few hour before I got there. This was the first time I ever had to cope with death. I just sat there in tears speechless, unable to even muster up the energy to get up. For the first time in my life I couldn’t do a thing to help the situation. I couldn’t eat or sleep for days, I felt helpless and alone. I was in such a horrible state that I didn’t even speak to anyone until the night before the funeral. That night I was asked to read the speeches prepared by my sister, three of my cousins, my aunt, and my own on their behalf. In my head, I felt that was the only way I could help. The only problem was that I had no access to a computer to type out my speech. I stayed up all night writing speech after speech on my cell phone, I kept telling myself that it just wasn’t good enough and I didn’t want to worry anyone, so I remained silent. Finally it was time to go to the funeral, this day couldn’t move any slower. Each and every second I spent at that podium looking down at my loved ones and that casket was like an unbearable torture. But I persevered; I read each speech one after another with tears running down my face. Every time I finished reading a speech I would have to stop and try my best to gain composure. Finally it was time for my speech, at this time I took out my phone which caused everyone watching to become dumbfounded. I stood there reading my speech, trying to get my words out as fast as I could so that I could finally leave. When it was over I felt embarrassed of the fact that I had to read it off my phone and expected to receive harsh comments from my family. To my surprise I was embraced by my family. Monday July 13, 2009 was the day my life changed, ever since that day it’s become difficult for me to take charge of my day to day problems but I’m trying. So please forgive me if I ever seem like I’m trying to either avoid any of you or I don’t respond because I’m not as open as I would like to be but I’m trying my best.