Blog post 4

   I had just gotten off the bus and was walking down my driveway. As I entered the doorway my parents were waiting in the living room, which typically didn't happen unless something bad had happened. I sat down in the living room, wondering what I had done, but it was nothing I had done. I was just told that my cousin had killed himself, I felt overwhelming emotions come in an instant. I will never forget the feeling of finding out that a relative had died, but more so when someone has ended their life earlier than what I had expected. I've had other relatives die, but to some extend you expect that older relatives will die eventually, but younger relatives like my cousin I expected to live as long as I will. It hurt me much more knowing that how much life he had to live, and how he ended everything in a few seconds. There is regret on my end that I didn't reach out to him more, or somehow prevented what happened, but I know I couldn't have known what he was going to do.
   The only person that could have known was my aunt, who adopted my cousin as a single mother. They lived in California, so only got to see him twice a year. in my opinion my aunt has some mental health issues, which most of the family agrees on. To this day I wonder if there was any kind of background check on her before she was allowed to raise a child, because she was not a fit single parent. Every time I went to their house she was yelling at my cousin, telling him he could do more and  needed to obey her in every way. Her dogs were treated as royalty while her son was a misunderstand boy with no one to turn to for affection. While she bought him plenty of things, objects can't fill the void of feeling unloved and we lived in another state so he had little family. Whenever he tried to come to Oregon his mom wouldn't allow it, but he was always welcome to come up. On top of all this he was constantly bullied at school and coped with this by vandalizing school property and joining the wrong crowd. Which led to him having to go to a border school to live at where he had no friends or family.
   I'd have to imagine that he felt like he was on an island with nobody on it, completely deserted and left out to dry. I know for a fact that when he came home he was yelled at and asked why he couldn't be a better son. Being compared to other people and made to feel worthless. Eventually one day he had enough and decided to go to the local basketball court at night and hang himself, not thinking of the consequences or who it would affect. I believe that in the end he loved his mom to the end of the world, and vise versa, but I can't comprehend how it feels to be adopted and never have a father figure in your life. I will never know what it's like to have terrible parents or go without feeling loved. There has to be another way other than suicide, and he had plenty of other options. His life was just beginning and he threw it all away, the possibilities were endless.
   That's the part that hurts me the most, the endless possibilities and the good times we had spent together. From going swimming at my aunt's house in California, to getting burritos downtown, yelling at the amusement park, and plenty of other memories. All of these memories came back to me at his funeral, and I will never forget the thousands of people at his funeral. He knew everyone in his town and didn't realize how many lives he had affected, neither did I. It was the most people I had seen at a funeral and if only he'd known how loved he was, he would be with me today. Everyone in the family misses him and there will never be someone to replace him. He had something that I don't, and that's the ability to connect with people with little effort.
   What we need to look at is that my aunt was not fit to raise a child alone, or may be not at all. I question how she was ever allowed to have a child, and that a father figure is important for any child's life. Perhaps the adoption agencies have changed over the years and I hope that they have. Also try to be there for family, make sure they know that you haven't forgotten them cause they could be gone in an instant. This was an important life lesson and I am still coping with the death of my cousin. Thanks for taking your time to read this I just felt like I needed to write a blog post about this topic.