{"id":1428,"date":"2016-12-15T13:59:07","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T18:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=1428"},"modified":"2016-12-15T13:59:07","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T18:59:07","slug":"were-not-drowning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=1428","title":{"rendered":"We’re not drowning"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Aliyah Austin
\n<\/strong>The Bucs’ Blade
\nGrand Haven HS
\n1st Place
\nDivision 1, News Writing
\nPersonal Narrative<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We lay on the floor together, surrounded by a fluff of Lion King sleeping bags and plaid pillows that smelled like cologne. Huddled under the fictitious comfort of blankets, I found myself wishing that my dad would limp through the door and replace it all.<\/p>\n

In the hours beforehand, my fashion video game had been interrupted with news from my Grammy and Papa.
\nMy daddy was dead.<\/p>\n

I gazed around the apartment. I\u2019ve heard that there are moments in life when you feel everything at once – then, there are times you don\u2019t feel anything at all. After tolerating hugs, I retreated back to my room. Pushing the power button on the TV, I continued to style a virtual blonde barbie.<\/p>\n

That night, my mom and my brother somehow wound up sleeping on the floor of the bedroom my sister and I shared.<\/p>\n

The details are hazy, but one of us kids – I’m not quite sure who; that night, it felt like we were as one – said, “I miss Daddy.”<\/p>\n

Engulfed in darkness, it was impossible to decipher my mother’s face. Yet, her choked reply reverberated through the dark room.<\/p>\n

All she managed was, “I know, honey. I do, too.”
\nIt was as though we’d been granted permission to let our collective sadness seep out of us.<\/p>\n

Howling, we sobbed – the four of us, on the floor together, swaddled in blankets, drowning in our sadness.
\nOnly, we weren’t drowning.<\/p>\n

Each racking sob, each salty tear was proof that we were alive. That moment taught me that to be sad, is to be alive.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, life still gets the best of me and tears threaten to leak onto the carefully composed canvas that I have worked so hard to perfect. I may not remember until my eyes are red and my nose is running, but I\u2019m alive – my dad isn’t. So I’m determined to feel everything life throws at me, and I am determined to feel it deeply.<\/p>\n

I’m not saying that we should be sad; sadness is inevitable. People say, “don’t be sad – smile,” because they like to believe that a carefully composed canvas is more beautiful than one that has been tattered and splattered upon. I plan on splattering my canvas with the darkest of blues, the bloodiest of reds and the most jealous of greens. That’s how I know I’m living life and living it well; as long as I\u2019m crying, I’ll know that I’m not dying.<\/p>\n

So I’ll weep over every Nicholas Sparks novel; I’ll even settle for the movie adaptations. I will wail over Severus Snape and Lily Evans and their tragic love story that never really was. And I will bawl when I think that my canvas has finally gotten too tattered and too splattered to ever again create something new – and after I’m done, I’ll dry my tears because I\u2019ll remember that to be sad is to be alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Aliyah Austin The Bucs’ Blade Grand Haven HS 1st Place Division 1, News Writing Personal Narrative<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,62],"tags":[135,20],"class_list":["post-1428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nw","category-personalnarrative","tag-2015-16","tag-division1","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jaimie Bozack","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=7"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-n2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}