Essential Question Response: Family

In this semester of English I, the question guiding the course is ‘who am I?’ Everyone has chosen one or two Essential Questions, and we are to respond to the question or questions twice a cycle. My two Essential Questions are ‘How do others view me?’ and ‘What will make me happy?’ Today I am responding to question ‘What will make me happy?


As I said in my last post, my Pomper is in currently in the hospital with heart problems. This past Sunday he was flown out to California to have surgery in Stanford. My grandmother and uncle went with him, and my mom is flying out tonight to be there the day of the surgery, which is set for tomorrow—Friday.

Because of everyone's worry over Pomper, we've had more 'family time' in the past week than we've had in a while. And though I usually prefer hanging out with friends to being with family, this week it's been very welcome. And what I've realized is that I should spend more time with my family even when things are normal. If something had happened to my parents or my sister in the past year-- if one of them died-- I would have had too many regrets to count. Most of all I would regret not spending enough time with my family. Now I'm starting to realize that I need to be with them more.

I used to take my family for granted—I think most people do. We assume that our parents will always be there to forbid us from doing something, that our siblings will always be there to argue with, that our grandparents will always be there to spoil us. We don't want to be with them, and when we are with them we take them for granted. I don't want to have that kind of relationship with my family. So regardless of the outcome of my Pomper's surgery, I want to spend more quality time with my family, because I don't want to take anyone for granted again.