Life never stops. When I was in eighth grade, my father became sick. We had to take him to the emergency room multiple times and get admitted into the hospital before actually finding out what was wrong. My father had cancer. He fought for three years until his body failed him. And because I have enough bad luck as it is, my father had to struggle with going to the hospital at the start of covid. He never lived long enough to see the end of it though. Covid happening at the same time as my father was ill made it almost impossible to visit him. New rules were made to protect other patients. He fought so long and hard after going through more than five rounds of chemotherapy and whatever random tests the doctors ordered. It took the doctors a year to finally figure out what type of cancer my father had and by then it was too late. After spending weeks in many different hospitals and him having to endure the most painful of tests, we found out he had two of the rarest types of cancer. He had Lymphoma and HLH. Both types of cancer were fatal, and he never had any survivors from the cancer. Doctors still do not know how to cure the cancer, so all the chemo my father went through was just for experimental purposes. Doctors had no idea what would or would not work. It made me mad how long medicine has been practiced and doctors still have no idea what they are doing. How many more ads and charities need to be made to raise money for research when the research is getting us nowhere? I was not helped when I needed it most. My father never gets to see me graduate high school and college. He never gets to walk me down the aisle. He never got to become a grandfather. All of this happening during my sophomore year of high school shifted my life completely. All of a sudden, everything I did had a weird amount of pressure put on me. After my father passed, I wanted to do the things I dreamed about even more. My desire to achieve my goals grew. I wanted to become well off and find an amazing job where I could come visit my mother and brother whenever I wanted. I want to work so hard that any job will accept me. My mother does not have to worry about me as much. I want to be able to take my mom and brother on trips and spend as much time as I can with them. Thinking about the future does scare me. What if I am not good enough, or I run out of time with my remaining loved ones? I have to push myself to become an even better person than my father expected me to be. I want to be enough for my mother and brother. I want to make my mother's dream come true and take her to Disney World. I have to work hard to make up for the time lost. I have to take every opportunity given to me because I cannot afford to let any pass by. My father was my family's main support with the money. Once he passed, we had to reach out for help. All of my college money went to paying off his hospital bills. My mother could not find a job to work because my brother has Down syndrome and needs constant attention. I want to help my mom in any way I can, and I can start helping by getting a good education. A good enough education where I can find a job good enough to support her and pay off any debt she has. I want to be there for my mother just like she was there for me.

My brother, Maverick, gazes up at me with exasperated eyes. His feelings that could not be verbally expressed are shown through his exaggerated movements in aggravation. I try to understand his rushed, slurred words, but I cannot. The music from the DJ booms over his voice, almost making him inaudible. The more I ask him to repeat himself, the more irritated he becomes. He stomps his feet weighted with rollerskates. Nosey adults and kids around us stared and eavesdropped in our conversation. I cannot look around the skate rink without meeting someone 's glare. Eyes are always on Maverick no matter where we are. Adults act as if Maverick is contagious, pulling their kids further and further away. I finally understand he wants to skate around the rink once more. I decided to take Maverick to the DJ booth to request his favorite song by Adam Levine. While waiting in line, a teenager skated up to us cutting in line, shoving Maverick to the ground in the process. Without a word of apology, the boy stood in front of us and acted as if nothing had happened. His push was not a light brush on the shoulder; it was a full-on double-handed chest shove. I thought Maverick was about to fall over. I would like to add, he kept his balance while on roller skates. I considered pushing the guy back, only for Maverick to beat me to it. Maverick pushed the big kid back with no hesitation, knocking the kid to the ground. The teenager began to cry and skated away to tell his mom. He told his mom he was pushed, leaving out his wrongdoing. The pusher knew he was in the wrong and did what any other kid would do to get out of trouble. He began to lie and cry. He stated how he only pushed Maverick because he was standing too close to him and felt uncomfortable. He thought he could get away with it because Maverick was smaller. Hitting someone back is not the right thing to do, but I was glad to see my brother stand up for himself. I underestimated Maverick´s ability to protect and advocate for himself. So, when he protected himself at the roller rink it was unexpected. I have always worried about how Maverick would be treated by others. I cannot stand the idea of Maverick getting mistreated. When he stood up for himself at the roller rink, it put my mind a little at ease. I had always wished for a brother, and when I got one, I thought it would be me teaching him. Turns out, I was the one being taught, and I am still learning from him today. Sometimes, kids can be rude to Maverick because of how they think of him. I have witnessed how different people are judged and viewed. Children depend on what their parents know, and what their parents are willing to teach them. Some adults from past generations have never been exposed to a person that is ¨not perfect¨. Generally, adults do not know how to handle a child that is different. So, their kids do not know how to react when meeting an ¨imperfect¨ person. A ¨normal person¨ assumes someone with a disability will not understand what is going on around them because of their appearance. I had this belief until I learned from being around individuals with special needs. Even though some special needs people look different and cannot speak clearly sometimes, they process information the same. I have learned many things from my brother. Patience, love, compassion, and most importantly understanding. I understand people with special needs on a deeper level. How when they act out, it is because they are frustrated with themselves not being able to communicate properly. When Maverick was at the roller rink, he could not verbally tell me what he wanted to do. My brother was born with Down syndrome. You might not have known this if I had not told you. Maverick might not have purposely opened my eyes to another world, but he is the reason I see people differently. The opportunities he has given me have allowed me to understand individuals with special needs on a personal level. My brother changed my life, and I am thankful. All it took was one extra chromosome to show me a side of the world I did not understand. Maverick has an extra chromosome and a whole lot of extra love.

My brother, Maverick, gazes up at me with exasperated eyes. His feelings that could not be verbally expressed are shown through his exaggerated movements in aggravation. I try to understand his rushed, slurred words, but I cannot. The music from the DJ booms over his voice, almost making him inaudible. The more I ask him to repeat himself, the more irritated he becomes. He stomps his feet weighted with rollerskates. Nosey adults and kids around us stared and eavesdropped in our conversation. I cannot look around the skate rink without meeting someone 's glare. Eyes are always on Maverick no matter where we are. Adults act as if Maverick is contagious, pulling their kids further and further away. I finally understand he wants to skate around the rink once more. I decided to take Maverick to the DJ booth to request his favorite song by Adam Levine. While waiting in line, a teenager skated up to us cutting in line, shoving Maverick to the ground in the process. Without a word of apology, the boy stood in front of us and acted as if nothing had happened. His push was not a light brush on the shoulder; it was a full-on double-handed chest shove. I thought Maverick was about to fall over. I would like to add, he kept his balance while on roller skates. I considered pushing the guy back, only for Maverick to beat me to it. Maverick pushed the big kid back with no hesitation, knocking the kid to the ground. The teenager began to cry and skated away to tell his mom. He told his mom he was pushed, leaving out his wrongdoing. The pusher knew he was in the wrong and did what any other kid would do to get out of trouble. He began to lie and cry. He stated how he only pushed Maverick because he was standing too close to him and felt uncomfortable. He thought he could get away with it because Maverick was smaller. Hitting someone back is not the right thing to do, but I was glad to see my brother stand up for himself. I underestimated Maverick´s ability to protect and advocate for himself. When he protected himself at the roller rink it was unexpected. I have always worried about how Maverick would be treated by others. I cannot stand the idea of Maverick getting mistreated. I had always wished for a brother, and when I got one, I thought it would be me teaching him. Turns out, he would be the one to teach me. I have learned many things from my brother. Patience, love, compassion, and most importantly understanding. I understand people with special needs on a deeper level. How when they act out, it is because they are frustrated with themselves not being able to communicate properly. When Maverick was at the roller rink, he could not verbally tell me what he wanted to do. My brother was born with Down syndrome. You might not have known this if I had not told you. Maverick might not have purposely opened my eyes to another world, but he is the reason I see people differently. The opportunities he has given me have allowed me to understand individuals with special needs on a personal level. My brother changed my life, and I am thankful. All it took was one extra chromosome to show me a side of the world I did not understand. Maverick has an extra chromosome and a whole lot of extra love.

The Last Petal to Fall Not all love is as pretty as a rose. Some love tears a person apart because of their idea of love. Overpowering blindness comes with the intimacy of tender affection. Not all affection is as delicate as it may seem, with evil in some men's eyes. Delicate women are deceived by any form of affection because the truth is invisible to them. The poem ¨The Sick Rose¨ by William Blake reveals a woman's point of view from the mistreatment of a man. A woman being forced into a stage of her life she was not ready for, causing her to feel great pain. The foreshadowing of the thundering sky in the darkness and the worm being invisible, the underlying truth of crimson pleasure, and the biblical laguage in the poems text contributes to the hidden meaning of sexual desires and the crooked ways to lose innocence. The title “The Sick Rose” is significant because it symbolizes virginity, and the subsequent loss of it. The rose is a significant choice because it refers to the English colloquialism of deflowering someone's rose. The flowers themselves represent the aforementioned innocence and the deflowering represents the removal of that purity as a result of sexual intercourse. The word sick represents the difficult transition from the pure to the impure. Feeling guilt is one of the side effects of losing one's innocence. The rose gained too much knowledge in the night from the worm. The once beautiful flower began to wilt after plunging into a dark unknown, which the rose was not prepared for. In this extended metaphor, the worm is a representation of a man, and the rose is a woman. Blake is likely writing about women in general, rather than just a specific one, because this experience is universal. The rose is infected in the night by a worm because of the dark love he showed to the women. The worm steals innocence that will never come back, destroying the rose's life, a woman's life. The simple story is to portray a woman losing her virginity to a man. ¨Blake’s poem is a parable of the damaging effects of sexual repression¨ (Mee, 112). The worms sexual desire was forced upon the rose and the only one who felt quilty was the rose. The hidden meanings of the story is delivered through symbolism to hide the true meaning that love is sick. The “crimson pleasure¨ could represent the beautiful color of the rose or it could show the transition from happiness into shame. The woman committed a shameful act with the man and she would have to face the consequences of her and the man's own actions. Blake alludes to the Bible due to deep rooted religious moral values influencing his poetry. The bible inspired Blake throughout his life to write in the same symbolic ways. Instead of stating what the true message of the story is in his poems, he intertwines the meaning in unordinary ways of portrayal. In the symbolic representation of the worm, it is supposed to represent an evil serpent. This evil serpent slithered its way into the rose and took away what made the rose so beautiful. The rose represents virginity with innocent, sweet young girls. ¨Blake was inspired by the Bible as no other work, its text becoming a kind of second language¨ (Miner, 35). A lot of his work uses biblical symbolization and a sing-songy style. Blake focuses on innocence and different ways of looking at a situation. The innocent sweet love was taken by the selfishness of the man ¨And his dark secret love¨ (Blake, line 8). Even though William Blake was born in the romantic era, he wrote poems to bring attention to the corrupting sexual desire of a man. Blake brought attention to supressessed inner feelings of a woman and the lack of control within a man. The invisible worm finds the bed of the rose in the thundering night to foreshadow a chaotic mess of emotions, and intoxicates the rose. The worm completely changed the rose's life from one selfish night. For instance, stanza two of the poem explains the effects of the actions in the night with the rose. The act of the evil worm´s crooked ways left the rose in a sense of affection she was unable to recover from. The battle of the storm inside the woman's heart takes over and builds up hatred. Passion that should be filled with lust and love was crushed in the palm of the invisible worm. ¨We may deduce that the 'howling storm' is nowhere but in the heart and eye of the speaker herself; she is in the state of experience, commenting with a jaundiced eye upon the experience of sexual love¨ (Berwick, 78). The night reveals a moment of crisis, projecting the reaction of the rose that just lost her sacred virginity. The invisible serpent sneaks into the bed of the rose to destroy her spirit. The sky howling represents that the night was not peaceful and the feelings were not mutual on both sides. The time of day elevates the situation because an evil act in the night could not be done in the shining day. The rose was taken advantage of and left to deal with the pain on her own. Sad in the night, the rose became ill with herself and what she had become. The once bright red petals were being penetrated with a killing disease. The dark night and the worm being invisible make the act become a sneaky craft. The evil worm escaped the end result of his not so noble deed. Through William Blake's writing, he portrays a love story like no other. This love story is full of hatred and sacrifice that was typically not written about in the 1700s. The worm creeping into the bed of the rose in the howling night gave great understanding of the rose’s feelings while losing her innocence. Following this loss of innocence, was an immense amount of guilt that only came to the poor rose. The story of one losing their virginity is hidden through biblical symbolism. The poet uses a sophisticated way to tell a story which was not portrayed in that way for his time. The first stanza represents the actions and the second stanza shows the effects of those actions. A woman loses her innocence to a man who only cares for his sexual desires, leaving her tarnished with guilt by her side.

My brother, Maverick, gazes up at me with exasperated eyes. His feelings that could not be verbally expressed are shown through his exaggerated movements in aggravation. I try to understand his rushed, slurred words, but I cannot. The music from the DJ booms over his voice, almost making him inaudible. The more I ask him to repeat himself, the more irritated he becomes. He stomps his feet weighted with rollerskates. Nosey adults and kids around us stared and eavesdropped in our conversation. I cannot look around the skate rink without meeting someone 's glare. Eyes are always on Maverick no matter where we are. Adults act as if Maverick is contagious, pulling their kids further and further away. I finally understand he wants to skate around the rink once more. I decided to take Maverick to the DJ booth to request his favorite song by Adam Levine. While waiting in line, a teenager skated up to us cutting in line, shoving Maverick to the ground in the process. Without a word of apology, the boy stood in front of us and acted as if nothing had happened. His push was not a light brush on the shoulder; it was a full-on double-handed chest shove. I thought Maverick was about to fall over. I would like to add, he kept his balance while on roller skates. I considered pushing the guy back, only for Maverick to beat me to it. Maverick pushed the big kid back with no hesitation, knocking the kid to the ground. The teenager began to cry and skated away to tell his mom. He told his mom he was pushed, leaving out his wrongdoing. The pusher knew he was in the wrong and did what any other kid would do to get out of trouble. He began to lie and cry. He stated how he only pushed Maverick because he was standing too close to him and felt uncomfortable. He thought he could get away with it because Maverick was smaller. Hitting someone back is not the right thing to do, but I was glad to see my brother stand up for himself. I underestimated Maverick´s ability to protect and advocate for himself. When he protected himself at the roller rink it was unexpected. I have always worried about how Maverick would be treated by others. I cannot stand the idea of Maverick getting mistreated. I had always wished for a brother, and when I got one, I thought it would be me teaching him. Turns out, he would be the one to teach me. I have learned many things from my brother. Patience, love, compassion, and most importantly understanding. I understand people with special needs on a deeper level. How when they act out, it is because they are frustrated with themselves not being able to communicate properly. When Maverick was at the roller rink, he could not verbally tell me what he wanted to do. My brother was born with Down syndrome. You might not have known this if I had not told you. Maverick might not have purposely opened my eyes to another world, but he is the reason I see people differently. The opportunities he has given me have allowed me to understand individuals with special needs on a personal level. My brother changed my life, and I am thankful. All it took was one extra chromosome to show me a side of the world I did not understand. Maverick has an extra chromosome and a whole lot of extra love.