To Be or Not to Be by Hannah

To Be or Not to Be by Hannah - February 2014 Scholarship Essay

“To be or to not to be, that is the question” When someone you love dies, there are only two options. You can die with them or you can live for them. I have taken both of those paths in my life. I can never know if I made the right decision, when I let my old self die, but I do know that my life would have have been different.

My grandmother died when I was thirteen. Thirteen is an traumatic enough age as it is, but to lose someone whom you consider to be a best friend and a second mother, that is true heartbreak. It was an awful year for me. I grew six inches, got mononucleosis, my period, and missed three months of school. It was the most eventful and uneventful year of my life. My family decided to move that year, not far, but far enough away from my old life that I felt safe. I wish it had brought me more comfort. I did not want to go to my new neighborhood’s school either. My grief and illness had brought me to a place in my life I thought I would never escape, depression. Depression is like Stockholm Syndrome, it is your captor, but you love it. I craved the refuge it provided from unloving world. I didn’t leave my house very often and never for school. I went to cyber school that year and the next.

The new house needed a lot of work, but my mother is a creative person, who loves a project. It took six months for the house to be renovated. My mum had brought in two people to help with the house, Glenn and Richie. Glenn is a carpenter and has been a family friend for years. Richie was the son of my mother’s boss, he was the painter. Richie, being an alcoholic and an artist, was like me in a way. I was addicted to solitude and he was addicted to vodka.

Glenn would work in the mornings and leave everyday at the same time, two o’clock. I would wake up around twelve every day, I had insomnia. Richie, I assume, woke up around the same time because he would drink all night. We would work on the house together. He taught me how to paint and how to mix colors. He would talk about art school and his paintings. I would talk about my books and ideas. It was the perfect arrangement because we never had to talk about the bad stuff, only the good and sometimes you just need to forget all the bad and focus on the good.

By the time the house was finished, I had started to climb out of my hole. I was going to therapy and leaving the house voluntarily. I had found a new school where my creativity could be let free. Richie wasn’t getting better and he never did, he hung himself a year later. Richie chose not to be. When someone dies you have to two choices, live for them or die with them. I had already died for one person and I could not do that to Richie. Richie did not have the strength to live for himself. I chose to live for him.