Adversity Is Not What You Think It Is by Rebecca

Adversity Is Not What You Think It Is by Rebecca - May 2022 Scholarship Essay

Everyone, at some point in their life, writes about a time they “overcame adversity”. There’s half a million essays that people have written, talking about how they dealt with bullying, or cancer, or a death in the family. They talk about what helped them through, whether it be support from family members, or faith, or a talent that helped them support themselves. These are all beautiful, touching stories, but what they don’t talk about is what happens after. No one talks about the self-image issues that persist years after bullying has stopped, the strain of long-term side effects of chemotherapy, the way that grief sits in your chest years or even decades after a person is gone. The hardest part of adversity is the aftermath. All that said, here is my aftermath.

When I was in middle school, my grandma went missing. Her car was gone and there was no sign of a struggle. They found her body a week later. She had suffered a stroke and gotten lost. That week of not knowing is what most people would probably call adversity. Don’t get me wrong, it was hard, but it was far from the worst part. Of course, the wake was lovely, and my middle school even sent flowers, but then the funeral ended. I still had to make up school work, take my finals, etc. all while riding in the car for four hours to her house every weekend to manage the estate. Life moved on. But all the while I couldn’t stop thinking about the last time I went to visit her, and what a moody, anti-social teenager I was. I was at her house for a whole week but I spent so little time with her, and to this day it’s one of my biggest regrets. I continued to carry that guilt for the next year and it could be overwhelming at times. How do you carry the weight of both grief and guilt?

For me, the answer was philosophy and critical thinking. I accidentally reinvented stoicism for myself when I used critical thinking to cope with guilt. There was nothing I could do to change the past, so it was no use being upset about it. Despite that, I still had time to change the future. I made a conscious effort to not take anything or anyone for granted. I leaned into my goth phase, drawn to the philosophy of Memento Mori, latin for “Remember You Die”. It was a way to remind myself to appreciate life and more importantly, the people in it. Philosophy also helped me carry my grief. I was watching YouTube, as teenagers do, and I discovered the Ask A Mortician channel, and with it the idea of “The Good Death”. The “Good Death” is the idea that death is an inherent part of life that exists in the neutral, and as such, it shouldn't be shied away from. Just as a person can live a good life, they can die a good death. The pain associated with death comes from the grief of missing someone, not death itself. According to my Grandma’s autopsy, she did have a good life and a good death. It was painless, her approximate time of death lined up with sunrise, and she was found on a hill overlooking a farm, reportedly with the best view of the property. Knowing she died a good death helped me reframe my grief, since I wasn’t mourning that she was in pain, but rather just mourning her absence. Once I reached that realization, critical thinking made my grief easier to manage , since logically, I cannot bring her back, and the feeling of loss is normal when noticing someone’s absence. Ever since I started approaching my grief from a more rational angle, it’s gotten easier to manage.

Even though I still miss her, that’s ok. Grief isn’t something that you overcome, it just gets easier to carry. It still affects me and how I see life. Not only is that ok, it’s in some small way, inevitable. Everyone will lose someone important to them at some point in their lives, and it’s important to acknowledge that loss permanently impacts people. It doesn’t get better, but it does get easier. It’s why I find it ironic that the scholarship rules for an essay about adversity discourages “negative content”. Adversity is painful, and that fact isn’t something that can or should be avoided, but rather acknowledged and accepted. To quote The Princess Bride, “Life is pain… anyone who says differently is selling something.” There’s going to be struggle and conflict in life. It can’t be avoided or overcome, but it can be managed. The thing that helped me the most was logical, critical thinking, since it kept me grounded in the reality that I needed to keep moving forward in life despite the weight of grief. Adversity is not a mountain to be climbed, but rather a load that you carry. In order to move forward, you lighten the load.