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Born the 12th of March 1958, Elvira Vasquez was the second to the youngest of nine children. Her parents were hard working Hispanic migrant workers who did everything in their power to provide for their large family. With such a large family one can say that a child could get lost in the mix, but not Elvira. Elvira or Billie, as her family and friends call her, was a quiet but a strong willed child. Her strong will later developed into perseverance in her spiritual life, parenting and health. Spiritually, Billie was always curious and eager to talk about God to anyone and everyone that would listen and occasionally those that wouldn’t. There was one person in particular that she took special interest in. Her father was what she called her …show more content…
She woke up with a severe pain in her side and began to have difficulty walking. Any kind of ailment was unusual for her as she had always been a healthy person. This particular Friday morning took her and everyone around her by surprise. Her daughter immediately took her to the hospital where they immediately began to run tests. Several hours later the grimed faced doctors said, Mrs. Flores you have cancer all over your body and it would be best to call all your family together. Forty-seven year old Billie, the pillar of her family, was going to die. Within hours Billie and her eldest daughter were on a private medical plane being flown to Houston to receive emergency treatment. Billie had no other words to say other than “God you are in control of my life”. After several hours of flight, mother and daughter landed in Houston where an overwhelming sense of peace embraced on them. Surgery was scheduled for Monday but after the x-rays came back doctors immediately took her into surgery. There they found several tumors, one that caused significant damage. This particular tumor had eaten part of her vertebrae and compressed her spinal cord, leaving her paralyzed. After surgery Billie began to ask God if it was her time to leave. His response to her was, her work was not done. That is all Billie needed to hear, it was time to fight. Billie and her daughter prayed day in and day out. Two
Maria Perez was born on May 18, 1944 in Zacatecas, Mexico. She grew up in a farm name Santa Rita. She is the last middle child of four kids, and her parents own a farm. It was a small farm, but she loves it. Since she was five years old, she helped her parents by working in the farm. Her job was to feed the horses, cows, chickens, and pigs. She loves all her animals, but her favorite animal was horses. When she was young, she loved to ride her horses. She felt off the horse and hurt head when she was young. She said, “I’m thankful to the lord that I survive that hit.” She wasn’t a normal child when she was growing up because she would just work with her parents and not plays like other kids. She wanted to have a normal childhood, but she had to work with her parents. She described
Selena Quintanilla Perez was born on April 16, 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas. Selena grew up understanding Spanish, but English was her first language. At the age of five Selena saw her brother learning to play the guitar and became jealous of the attention he was getting. She picked up a songbook and began to sing. Her family quickly turned their attention to her strong and beautiful voice. In the first grade Selena excelled at a game called Jump the Brook, in which two ropes are placed side by side and each kid takes a turn jumping across.1 In middle school Selena was in honors classes and made A’s and B’s. Selena used her allowance to put clothes on layaway. As a teenager, Selena hung all of her awards on the wall next to the staircase in her family’s house. As an adult, Selena was very involved with kids. She was a spokeswoman for the D.A.R.E. Program.
No matter how much he put her through, she kept fighting for her life. I was confused by this because, in my eyes her life was completely over. I did not see how she could ever live a functioning life after all of the things that she went through. I would have thought that this reality would have been a reason for her to give up and choose fiction. Fiction would have been the easy way out of the pain, loses, and suffering that she faces and would continue to face. Then I thought to myself that is what makes humans amazing. Being able to endure the challenges of life and keep going. Originally, I thought she was a fool to keep going then I realized that she was strong. If I was her I would have chosen my reality
Esperanza, the most liberated of the sisters, devoted her life to make other people’s lives better. She became a reporter and later on died while covering the Gulf Crisis. She returned home, to her family as a spirit. At first, she spoke through La Llorona, a messenger who informed La Loca that her sister has died. All her family members saw her. She appeared to her mother as a little girl who had a nightmare and went near to her mother for comfort. Caridad had conversations with her about politics and La Loca talked to her by the river behind their home.
As I continued to chat with my pastor that day, I really sensed the hurt in his eyes – the anger that comes from an unsolvable injustice, the tiredness of a problem. “What’s wrong?” I finally asked, “Having a bad day?” Sensing that I was truly concerned, he let the truth be told. “I talked with a woman today whose baby died suddenly of unknown causes. As we worked through her grief, she talked about how numerous friends and family, even a religious leader had patted her on the back, shook their heads and said, ‘It was God’s will.’ I find few things worse to say to a grieving parent. Saying nothing at all would be of more help.” It was obvious from our conversation that he had an understanding greater than I about God’s will, and his insight created in me a curiosity and desire to learn more.
Valeria Arredondo is the proud 19 year old daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Cleo and Rosario Arredondo. She was born on March 10th 1998 in Torrence, California. Valeria has two older siblings, Guillermo and Celeste and a younger brother named Alan. She began her education in Palmdale California at Cimarron Elementary School then moving to Corpus Christi, Texas at the age of 12. In Corpus Christi she attended Elliot Grant Middle. She continued her education at Mary Carroll High School where she prepared herself for college by taking advanced placement courses such as English and Spanish which gained her collegiate level hours. Not only was she lively present in the classroom, she was on the soccer team, was a varsity cheerleader, member of all her student
Divine intervention, a miracle, or just mere luck, it was; I was just grateful to be alive. Death had seemed so near, but life pulled out the victory. I felt the grainy California sand against my skin. No movement seemed necessary; it was perfect enough just to breathe in the humid air that moments earlier I had so dearly craved, and nearly lost. Still, in shock, I spread out on the sand like a beached whale. My mother laid next to me in tears, muttering, “I thought I lost you.” She was not the only one who thought I would die; I was the
David’s rehab center on 32nd. So they sent her off to that facility. The whole family agreed that would be great, so she would be able to gain her mobility back. It's February now and after doing all of the therapy my grandmother would be coming home Friday, February the 12th, wow this felt like the worse was coming to an end and she was coming home tomorrow morning. But God had other plans, we had got a call that Friday morning at 3:45 am saying that heart had stopped and that it was unknown how long she had been down, they said it took them ten minutes to get a pulse started and they battled for an hour to stabilize her heartbeat. This was it. She’s gone. But we have to keep the faith when we arrived at the hospital she had only been stable for about five minutes. This to us already was tragic news they had her on a ventilator, which is also known as life support. We knew that at this point in time the lady that was holding the family together was now holding on to her life. The doctors told us that the worst case scenario she could be brain dead, they ran the test and finally found out why her heart stopped. My grandmother had had a pulmonary embolism which is a condition when one or more arteries in the lungs are blocked by a blood clot. This embolism caused her heart to stop. The cooled her body temperature all the way down to 30 degrees Fahrenheit to protect her brain. When they did the CAT scan they revealed that she was, in fact, brain dead and without the machine she wouldn’t
Though there are several patients featured, the story centers around Cody Curtis, a woman who was diagnosed with liver cancer. At 56, she is a beautiful woman who doesn’t appear to be sick. She seems healthy and happy. However she is in constant pain and is suffering greatly. She is given a diagnosis of only six months left to live and sets a date to choose to die. She has complete control over when she will die. She can make peace with those around her and complete her life before she dies. She says that death with dignity won’t be easy, but it would be easier than the alternatives. However, she outlives her diagnosis and her quality of life continues to improve. When things take a turn for the worst, she decides to end her
One fateful day at the end of June in 1998 when I was spending some time at home; my mother came to me with the bad news: my parent's best friend, Tommy, had been diagnosed with brain cancer. He had been sick for some time and we all had anxiously been awaiting a prognosis. But none of us were ready for the bumpy roads that lay ahead: testing, surgery, chemotherapy, nausea, headaches, and fatigue. Even loud music would induce vomiting. He just felt all around lousy.
Nancy was only four years old when her grandmother died. Her grandmother had a big lump on the lower right hand side of her back. The doctors removed it, but it was too late. The tumor had already spread throughout her body. Instead of having a lump on her back, she had a long stitched up incision there. She couldn’t move around; Nancy’s parents had to help her go to the bathroom and do all the simple things that she use to do all by herself. Nancy would ask her grandmother to get up to take her younger sister, Linh, and herself outside so they could play. She never got up. A couple of months later, an ambulance came by their house and took their grandmother away. That was the last time Nancy ever saw her alive. She was in the hospital for about a week and a half. Nancy’s parents never took them to see her. One day, Nancy saw her parents crying and she have never seen them cry before. They dropped Linh and her off at one of their friend’s house. Nancy got mad because she thought they were going shopping and didn’t take her with them.
Through the next couple of days our family went through some of the coping stages. We experienced anger because we did not know the severity of the damage, we were depressed and then we had to come to accept God’s will. Ann was a devout Christian and we found comfort of knowing where she was going to.
directed her to question what lies behind. Many people in her family were suffering from cancer and
As a die heart Christian of age 30, Ann Marie Davis experience her life flash before her eyes. She succeeded in a career as a Unity minister in Clinton, Iowa. Through out her lifetime, she faced four devastating cancers that put her faith to the test. But at the age of 30, doctors began running out of hope. Davis was diagnosed with cancer and Legionnaires’ disease that put her life on the line. With the countless amounts of medicine she continued to take, nothing seemed to be strong enough. Doctors told her family to prepare for the goodbyes and tears, for she was expected to not make it through one more night. Over night, Davis prayed with all the strength she had remaining to hold off leaving this earth. With the sun arising the next morning, Davis’ cancer has been announced cleared and prepared to leave the hospital with her family. Despite what the doctor’s had to say, Ann Davis is one of the many Christians who never doubt the healing hand of their spiritual savior. Many scientists have tried to find the truth behind these types of miracles, and tried to find out how they got answered. Disregarding, what doctors will try say, or what scientist will try to prove with newer medical treatments, there will always be the power of prayer that cures all the above.
It was June 6, 2011. I remember taking my mother to the County Hospital’s emergency room. She seemed extremely exhausted; her eyes were half-closed and yellow, and she placed her elbow on the armchair, resting her head on her palm. I remember it was crowded and the wait was long, so she wanted to leave. I was the only one there with her, but I did not allow her to convince me to take her home. I told her in Spanish, “Mom, let’s wait so that we can get this over with and know what’s going on with you. You’ll see everything is okay, and we’ll go home later on.” I wish then and now that would have been the case. Unfortunately, she was diagnosed with colon cancer that had spread to many parts of her body including her lungs and kidneys. The doctor said to me not considering that I was a minor and my mother’s daughter, “Her disease is very advanced and we don’t think she will live longer than a year.” With this devastating news, I did not know what to do. I thought to myself that perhaps I should cry, or try to forget and take care of her as best I could and make her laugh to ease her pain.