English Essay

Angela G. Bailey

Professor Wilson

Intro to University Writing

13 February 2015

I Believe in Writing

Let me tell you why I started writing in diaries. I was 17 years old when my mother got cancer. My mother tried to take her own life by jumping out of a hospital window. Thank God it was time for her meds and the nurse was able to get her back to her bed. This was so devastating to me, just the thought that she wanted to die sooner. I did not understand why she did not want to spend what little life she had to be with her children. I started writing daily about her day and what I was feeling. I had just gotten out of a children’s home. Definitely there was so much fear in me that I was going right back to the home. Many tears flowed from my eyes that year. I did not want to see my mother leave this world without getting any time with her. After all I was in the children’s home since I was eight and a half years old. My junior year in high school my teacher took me aside as she knew what I was going thru. She told me to write my life down that I had a story to tell. I did not write my life down however; I did start a diary and wrote in it from the day my English teacher told me to start. My mother died and I made it thru the funeral but it was pure and raw emotions I felt watching my sisters scream and brothers cry like babies. All I could do was sit and watch, I never shed a tear because I had come to terms with her dying by writing about her.

Fast forward 5 years down the road after my mother’s death. My brother Randy took his young life at 37 by taping his car windows and running an exhaust pipe thru his window. We looked for him for days. We never had one clue that he was suicidal. If we did we never picked up on it. We found him in the morgue. My brothers and sisters and I all knew that Randy never got over our mothers death, after all he was a momma’s boy. It took me a long time to get over his death than it did my mothers. He came to me in a dream and explained why he took or life. It gave me a sense of peace and understanding inside as to why he took his life. Maybe it was just that I made myself believe why.To this day two of my sisters have yet to get over his death. I tell them all the time to sit and write their feelings down. They may understand more why he did this horrible thing that crushed all our lives. Again writing got me through this horrible tragedy.

Now I will tell you about my daughter April who tried to take her life many years ago when she was 20 years old. Thank God, she had the sense to go to the hospital afterwards before the pills kicked in she was able to tell them what she did. Took me a long while to understand how a love gone wrong can cause a girl to want to die. I asked my daughter to please write me a letter explaining how she felt and why she felt she wanted to leave life as she knows it. She gave me a 5 page letter that stated this boy was the love of her life. I knew it wasn’t because he was her fist boyfriend. She did not want to go on without him in her life. I was appalled that she not once thought about me, her sister, or her father. Instead of yelling at her and getting myself all tore up all I could do was cry and write about how I felt. I did let my daughter see what I wrote a few years later. I felt she needed to know my feelings without my yelling and making her feel worse at the time.

Then just 2 years ago, I get a call that my oldest brother tried to take his life with a drug overdose. I sat day and night at the hospital with him. I bathed him, held his hand continuously. I was the only sister that stayed by his side. All the others I suppose expected it since he had been on drugs for so long. My brother lived to get out of the hospital just to die a few weeks later from natural causes the coroner said. I do not believe it was natural causes but who am I to argue with a specialist. I have written about all this in my diary. Writing about it puts a sense of understanding. As I write about such tragedies in my life I feel I know I am meant to stay alive and take care of my girls. I have no desire to die any time soon.

Where would we be if no one liked to write? We would not have children’s books to read to the little ones at night. What about learning what is going on in the world? Sure we could all sit and watch TV however; I feel we only get a glimpse of what is going on in the world. By someone writing it gives us the knowledge about other cultures, countries, and different people of the world. We learn about so many adventures that others have taken. We would never learn what happen in people’s lives that made them act the way they act. I believe in writing because I feel it is very soothing and comforting when I sit down to put my thoughts on paper. I have always written down my thoughts of losing my brother to suicide, my father to alcoholism, my mother and daughters suicide attempts, another brother’s death due to drugs according to the coroner.

I write about my daughters every day. I truly believe writing can save a life. They may also see that it can be a big stress relief. Writing can be extremely calming. As I write in my diaries I feel close to the subject I am writing about. I feel that I answer some of my questions that I had before I started writing. Writing is a way for me to deal with life and the struggles it brings to me.

We all have read books that have been written that are just boring. We all have read books that are very exciting and a breath of fresh air. Without writing to me it would be a boring world out there. What I do know about writing, is that it saved me from doing something to myself that would be very detrimental to my family, my health, and to the people that love me. Writing is the key in my life. I pray it will be the answer for others that have never tried writing to deal with pain.