Reflective Essay

Reflective Essay Receiving the horrible news was more painful than walking on a thousand nails. The many times I told myself that it was all just a dream, the more I began to believe myself. All until the horrible realization that it was happening and that it was too good to be true. Realizing that every morning I woke up to go check his room he wouldn’t be there was one of the many realizations I had to experience. But there was one positive outcome of the death of my brother. It taught me that you can never take the time you spend with your loved ones for granted even if you only see or converse with them for five minutes, never take it for granted. I remember this tragic event like it was yesterday. My brother and I were 8 years apart. So we were very close. He left off going to Pennsylvania to go to Penn State College. We talked and texted at least 3 times a day if not more. Our conversations were very meaningful and I will always cherish the ones that we had. During Christmas of ’09 he came down for the home going of my aunt. Just being able to see him was enough for me. While talking to him my mother and I noticed that he had a lump on the left side of his neck and my mother advised him to get it checked out. So, he went to the doctor and they ran tests and found out that it was a cancerous tumor and that they would need to start treatment right away. Finding this out, my brother then moved back to Florida to start his treatments at ORMC (Orlando Regional Medical Center). After about 3 months of treatment, the doctor said that the cancer was more aggressive than they thought it could develop so they said there was nothing else that they could do. The medical staff proceeded to send Earl to hospice where he would no longer be taking chemotherapy but just medicine to relieve him of the pain. We all knew he wouldn’t be with us that much longer, but the persistence and determination in me believed that he would live to see me reach high school, get my