core, your heart

MARISA GALU:LLI GUEST WRITER MLG723 @CAB.RINI .EDU

All of us know what it is like to lose someone we love, or at least can understand and imagine how it would feel to lose someone so close to you. Three weeks ago I lost one very key person in my life to death. This person was a great pillar of strength. She was the one that told me that I could do whatever I wanted as long as I wanted it bad enough.

This person is my grandmother, or Nana, as my family fondly called her. She was always there whenever I needed her to just talk about anything. She would sit there and just listen to me babble about anything I felt the need to talk to her about.

My grandmother died on Wednesday,Sept. 24. This was a crushing blow to my entire family. But to me it meant that a huge amount of my self-confidence, my confidence in others and in my beliefs would plummet. When I was little, I would go over to my Nana's house after school. She would just sit there and help me with my homework, at the same time boosting my self-confidence.

When I was in grade school I was constantly teased by everyone, and I basically had the idea that nobody liked me but a select few people. It always seemed that someone was saying something negative about me. Nana's solution to this was a grilled cheese and a hug. She said that I was one of the five grandchildren that she was blessed with. It seemed to me that she treated each of us as her equal. The reason for this, I was told by my Aunt Eunice, Nana's sister, right after the funeral mass, was that she had this way about her. The way that she treated each of us made us feel so special and loved.

I regret not telling her that I loved her especially when I became preoccupied with work. Even though I knew that she knew that I loved her, I would have liked to tell her one more time.

The days preceding her death I can say I wished I had called her when I was going to, but instead I. was busy with work. Now I very much regret that decision because I never truly got to tell her how much I loved her. The days after her death were the hardest in my life so far. It didn't truly hit me until the next morning; I just woke up and realized that I never got to tell her how much I loved her. It seems to me that after this ordeal I have come to realize that time is a precious thing and that we should spend each day as if it were our last. I know it's probably one of the most over used lines in anything you've read or seen but it is the honest truth. You never know how much time you have. You honestly have to take each day and live it to the fullest because you truly don't know the amount of time you have left on this earth. It seems to me that sometimes it feels as though she is right beside me, guiding me through the difficult situations in my life.

I have always had a problem with trusting people too easily and then ending up being hurt in the end. In my heart I believe that everyone is inherently good, but I know in my head that is not true, because in my life I have come across many people who are simply out for their own personal gain and they do not care who they hurt in the process, and my Nana helped me to understand this point. My Nana always encouraged me to be able to stand on my own two feet and to know when to ask for help.

I know that it will be hard to go ahead in life but as long as I have my family and my friends, maybe I will find a new pillar, not to take over the place of the old, but just to use sparingly until I have found the strength within myself to truly let me carry on and be my own pillar.

I definitelywouldtake advantage of the co-op or internship opportunity.

No. because us education majors have field experience "thrown" at us unlike other majors.