When my mother was first diagnosed, I was not informed at the beginning, but the changes I could see in my family were that everyone started getting along better and feeling more united. I finally became aware that my mother had breast cancer when they told me I could not get near her for some time since she had recently gone through her first Chemotherapy. As the cancer progressively got worse, I witnessed my mother's hair fall out, and as she grew weaker. But she always tried to keep up appearances and got herself a wig to cover up the hair loss, but eventually, the breast cancer got bad enough that they cut off her breasts completely. I saw my mother lose all the confidence and energy she previously had, which also affected the family since she was the life of the house. But still, it brought the family together, wanting her to recover from this loss, and we brought her a fake breast, which seemed to help her recover just a little. We kept telling her she did not need those things to look beautiful. She eventually got back on her feet and gained enough confidence to joke about it. As time passed, she continued getting check-ups to make sure that the cancer did not come back. Then, her main doctor went on a break, and she was unable to get a check-up for a while, and during that time, the cancer came back. This affected the other breast and developed further into her lungs, becoming terminal lung cancer. This brought my family closer together, even if they had their fights. We came together for Christmas to celebrate with no fighting for one last time. The cancer had gotten to the point where it hospitalized her multiple times, and she eventually lost her life. The pillar of our family had fallen, and everyone was in mourning. Once it all passed, the family started to fall apart, and they all broke up into their own groups. I was left without anyone to trust to keep us together, having lost both parents and being the youngest sibling. I tried my best to become that pillar, as I had grown enough from the first time to know that this could happen, and to be aware of the situation that could potentially unfold. I took charge and decided to stay with the set portion of the family that everyone would have lost contact with; if nothing, there was no reason to talk to them to give them a reason to keep everyone in contact. I was forced to mature enough to focus on the long-term rather than the short-term, which eventually led to my family making up and talking to each other. This now feels like the strongest connection I have ever had. We continue to recover from this situation, but at a steady pace, which has led to stronger bonds and not as much bickering as before. We still stop to think about my mother, as she was a huge part of our lives, and we could only hope she is proud to see how we are doing.

The significant loss I experienced growing up was my father, even though at first I did not understand it, as I was only nine years old at the time. All I knew was I had lost something, and I did not know what at the time, but it hurt. This loss started to affect me as my family could no longer afford to live in California, where I was born and raised, and with the change being so late into the year, I became alienated from my surroundings and ended up losing a lot of friends and other places I recognized. My earliest memories are of California, and the time I spent there was my greatest early memory. I closed myself off until my last year of middle school. After transferring to a Catholic School in Las Vegas, things changed for the better. Everyone was friendly, unlike my previous experience. This experience is where I told myself that whenever I see someone in a similar circumstance, I will help them out, as I will take examples from my peers at this school and welcome them. I started opening up again, and it led me to process what had happened with my father and what it led to, which was a decline in financial stability. I started to think about the reasons my father moved to the U.S., and the only solution I could come up with was that he moved to give his children a better opportunity to study and get the education he never had in Mexico. I started to dedicate myself to my studies until life threw another dagger at me toward the end of my freshman year, when we learned that my Mom’s Cancer had come back, and this time it was terminal lung cancer. With all of the trauma--the loss of my father and my mother's terminal cancer--I started using sports and video games to distract myself from reality. Though I felt like I used these experiences to cope with pain and give myself time to heal, I realized I needed to refocus on school. At the hospital, when I was asleep, I overheard the doctor say that she only had two years left. By my Junior year, she could no longer do anything by herself, so I set my attention to being there for her and caring for her. I thought back to my father and how I never got the chance to say I loved him towards the end. Every chance I got, I expressed my love for my mother, and even 30 minutes before she died in front of me, I hugged her and kissed her on the forehead. It brought me to a spiral, thinking I did not do enough for her, that I could have done more. She supported me through every decision I made, knowing she did not have much time. I was taken in by my sister, and I got time to process it and keep growing with the mindset that family will always come first. You don’t know when someone might fade in your life, so cherish the moments that you currently have with them. This has helped me maintain a mindset that says I have to fend for myself and not make others worry about me. Continuing with my path and goals would be the best thing I could do to honor their memory, as they did not sacrifice their lives working for their children for them to stop just because they are gone, but keep pushing towards personal and family goals.

Before High School I did not know what went into setting places up for free food and I had no Idea how to communicate but all that changed Once I got into Cristo Rey my school hosted events on campus to help distribute food to whoever needed it Thos monthly events were part of the Just One Program. I volunteered every month whenever I got the chance since once, I went for my first time it was hard but seeing all the faces of my community smile like I have never seen before made me proud, so I continued. Until I got to work there for a year, I got to talk to people from all sorts of places and hear there story's as I helped at a Market section indoors and disruption outdoors. The people had felt like a family to me since I got to help them out all the staff never complained and supported the community in their own way I got to learn a lot of different skills but at one point it felt like a shadow was coming. I had problems with a few panic attacks because when remembering what was happening at home I simply viewed everyone as family, but I was putting on a face for some time since my mom had lost her life recently do to cancer and helping people in a similar age made me remember. I started seeing older folk with issues and it brought back memories I helped them and always greeted them with a smile and attended to them but once they left, I sat down and remembered all the times I spent with my mother, and my coworkers realized this too and helped me get through it. They were my piler during this time and I helped them however I could and, in the afternoons, when there was not clints I helped make calls for a program known as Meals on Wheels I helped people from 60 and older confirm their deliveries as they no longer had the strength to come in. If they had any complaints I heard them and told my supervisor about them and kept rolling through 60 or more calls per day and confirmed about 120 delvers while canceling or leaving messages for the rest I helped with my community and that's when I came to think I want to help these companies in the futter and one of the skills I have is to do with numbers so I would want to help multipole Non-Profit organizations get there finical sorted at a minimal cost since they treat anyone like family and offer all the care you could need.