If you watch Naruto and do not want to be spoiled about the next episode due to not having seen it or read it, I say avoid this paragraph. I just watched the latest episode of Naruto from Japan where Naruto decides to listen to Nagato's story about how he eventually became Pain. This happens after Naruto defeats the Six Paths of Pain and finds out he was taught by the same person. Pain asked Naruto how he plans on bringing peace to the ninja world when their master could not come up with an answer, so Naruto decides to listen to his story before deciding what he would do. Basically Nagato became Pain from two experiences, the death of his parents by the hands of Konoha ninja and the death of his best friend Yahiko. The latter incident made me feel sad because Nagato was put in a situation where he either kills Yahiko or his other friend Konan dies. As Nagato held up a kunai given to him, Yahiko runs over and kills himself then tells Nagato to save himself and Konan. I'd obviously won't know what it's like to be in that situation since I'm not in the middle of a war. It does make me curious about how I'd react if I were put in a situation like that.
Now that I'm done tying an anime to the subject, I'm going to talk about situations that actually happen in life. My struggles I talked about in my last post: they are probably nothing compared to the suffering many others go through. I might not have even hit rock bottom...but I might not notice since I can be so naive.
To reference someone from my last post, there's that one girl who is bullied by her younger sister and grandmother. She is the one who has to take care of her grandmother since her mom has to work a lot, her dad is in Mexico, and her 15 year old sister is pregnant. She also has to work, go to school when it starts, and her best friend died less than a year ago. Through that she still believes in God and finds reasons to smile.
Then there is my friend Anthony. I've never actually met him in real life, but we became friends online when I was in 5th grade. We both "met" when we wrote fan fiction for Smash Bros. on a forum. Right now, I can honestly say I'm probably not a good writer...at all. Meanwhile, he is talented in that area, and he is very imaginative. However, for the last few years he has had struggles in school and with family life. I already knew he was not enjoying life at school even in his senior year, but I never knew he had a problem at home as well. It was last week I found out he had an older brother. How did I find out? Well...his facebook status announced his brother just died from a drug overdose.
The reason I decided to write a blog post for the second night in a row was because I just read Anthony's tribute to his brother. Just from reading the long blog post, I learned a lot about both him and his brother, both people I have never actually met. From what I've read, Anthony wasn't as close to his brother as he wanted to be because of his brother's drug problem. Although his brother decided to take him on a trip to New York, he drugged himself behind Anthony's back. He also sold 15 of Anthony's games without letting Anthony know. Anthony was angered by it, but he still cared about his brother. The last time he saw his brother, his brother decided to play Goldeneye for the N64 like they used to. The last thing his brother ever said to him was a text saying he was glad he could help Anthony with figuring out the bus schedule.
"Even after all of the horrible things Michael had done to me and my family, even after all of the suffering and guilt and pain he went through, he still loved me. He was looking out for me. Like a big brother should."One thing Anthony regrets is that they would never have a chance to improve their relationship.
When I read his post, I felt sad for him. At the same time, I know I don't really understand how he really feels since I've never been through something like that. It definitely makes me appreciate my family, and I feel blessed that I am not going through suffering like that right now. However, I am curious about what life would be like if I were in a similar situation. Would I be the same person as I am now? I know God has different plans for everyone, and I feel like he gave me a heart that wants to sympathize with people going through harder times than I am. However, I know I can't fully understand what others are going through. The best thing I know I can do is give words of condolences and pray for them.
Until next time...maybe I can actually write a post about stuff I learn instead of mostly giving examples...
Kenneth
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