Summer is a time for excitement spontaneity, and new experiences. Let’s just say my summer was a bit lacking in these qualities. My summer consisted of hanging out with my friends, volunteering at the hospital, and in the final weeks tragedy. My summer began relatively normal, me and my friends having a great time whether it be going to the lake , going to Six Flags, or just sitting around watching movies.


Everything was going smoothly until the beginning of July when one of my friends and I began volunteering at the hospital. To say the least we weren’t volunteers of the year. Our duties included working at the volunteer office (creating folders, delivering mail, etc.) and working at the day care where the doctors sent there children. We were great at the office aspect but not so great at the daycare portion. At the daycare we were given very little direction on what to do so when we did not have a task given to us we would just stand by waiting until we were needed, I guess that’s not what we were supposed to do. About three weeks into volunteering the head of volunteers received a call from the daycare telling her that we were no longer needed and would prefer if we did not return. The head of volunteers came to us at lunch and explained to us=2 0the phone call. We were shocked not thinking we did anything wrong. She asked to go apologize. I was horrified, I felt extremely uneasy apologizing, considering I didn’t feel as if I had done anything wrong. We both went over to apologize but they nor cared or bothered to give us an explanation. In the end we had to laugh about getting fired from volunteering, because we didn’t realize that was even possible. So after the initial feeling of failure we took it all in stride and just laughed about the entire situation.

After this incident I didn’t believe that my summer could bring me anymore disappointment, I was wrong. About 2 weeks later my world was spun upside down. On August 12th my aunt, who was also my godmother, went into the hospital for a routine procedure she was supposed to leave the hospital within a day or two, but that’s not what happened. On August 18th a little bit less than a week later she passed away at the hospital due to unknown complications. The doctors knew something was wrong within those six days but that information was never disclosed to my family, I don’t think we will ever really know what happened. She was other wise healthy, she was only 49 years old. I was shocked, as was my entire family. So my last weeks of summer were filled with grief, anger, and disbelief. After the initial shock subsided I was left with one simple question, why did this happen. After wracking my brain for answers and blaming the doctors I realized, there was no reason. The bottom line was it happened even though it shouldn’t have, it did. I had to stop being angry and put all that aside, deal with my grief and just get past it. Life is always going to make more pain, not everything is guaranteed to go perfectly as planned and there is nothing you can do to change that. The only thing you can do is handle the situation with grace and get passed it.

In the end my summer wasn’t as bad as you would’ve thought. Even though my friend and I got fired we had a good time volunteering and can now look back and laugh at the whole situation. Even though my aunt passed away, I now know to treasure every moment because the next moment isn’t guaranteed. So in the end even though my summer was a bit lack luster I learned that there really is a silver lining to every cloud that passes your way.