Connections in Family Stories

Some of the stories my classmates wrote were about tragedies. In fact, mine was about a tragedy,  but sometimes the events and tragedies that happen can change people's lives. In my story, my grandfather was mistreated during the Honduras-El Salvador war in 1969. He was mistreated for being from El Salvador and living in Honduras. The soldiers from Honduras came to his house and took him to prison, where they tortured him and treated him bad. When he was let free, his life changed and he was not the same person. He became a sad person and his personality changed a lot.
I found other stories written by my classmates that were similar, or that had the same ideas that mine had.. I think that the stories that involve tragedies are the ones that connect to mine.

This is from Carly's story:

His leg had been cut off of circulation for too long, it was already dead. On that day, the doctors amputated my Uncle’s left leg at the age of twenty.
The loosing of his leg depressed and hurt my Uncle so deeply; he tried to commit suicide multiple times.

In Carly's story,  she talks about the story of her uncle who was traveling to "the city" in a train. Something happened to the train that caused it to go out of control so the people in the train thought that the best way to survive before the train crashed was to jump off from it. Well, Carly's uncle (which is actually her great-uncle) decided that he, with the other passengers would jump off the train, but it was too late. By the time he jumped off the train, the train had already crashed into a house of boulders. His left leg was jammed by the boulders. He survived, thankfully, but his left leg had to be amputated when he was only 20 years old.

After the accident he became really depressed and always thought about suicide. This incident changed his life for ever. Eventually he changed though; he did not think about suicide anymore and looked more happy. This was because all the support his family gave him. The strength that his family gave him helped him feel better about his life. This is the kind of tragedy that can put someone down, make them feel like giving  up, like Carly's uncle.

In Rahni's story, she says:

So they left the baby and came to California. They got settled in and were doing their thing, when my great grandmother got word that her baby Charles and her mother died in a burning house. they said the KKK was responsible for it but they did not know, so she had to go back and confirm it to make sure.

 In this story, her great grandparents get married but struggled so they move around a lot. They have a kid and they leave it with her mother, and then move again, but one day the baby and her mother(great grandma's mother) are killed in a fire. This was a tragedy that changed the lives of that family. Rahni's grandparents were hurt a lot because their kid was killed probably by the KKK, and her mother was killed as well. That caused suffering to the family.

Tragedies change people's lives and make them suffer. Sometimes the effects are permanent but sometimes people learn to let go and continue their lives normally, not forgetting about the past but putting it aside. I have actually done this in my life.

These three stories have tragedies that caused struggles. I guess that's all what tragedies do...

Response to Tiffany Cao's post: "Words that looks simple, but actually sophisticated"

I started reading Tiffany's post, and I realized that she talks about something I also thought a lot about in class. I was actually in Tiffany's group and we could not come up with a solid definition of "innocence". My personal opinion about innocence was that it cannot be really defined. There are too many ways that innocence is described as by different kinds of people. Sometimes the differences in culture determine what innocence is. But innocence cannot be defined only one way. The general idea of innocence is one who is free of sins, but who knows what is good and what us bad? How do we determine what is right and what is wrong? It depends on the people. All people think different and that causes the different ways they see innocence. Some people might think some things can be acts of innocence while others could think those same actions are bad acts that destroy innocence. Innocence is a universal idea that means different things to different people, and can be shown in different ways.

. What is innocence? First, I thought it meant the avoidance of moral wrong. As I tell my table mates about what I thought. Soon, I asked myself what is wrong? What is right? Then what in the world does innocence mean? We began to think it out, but we had no explanation nor definition of the word, "innocence."

Tiffany also compares the meaning of the word "innocence" and the meaning of the word "love" and how they are interpreted. Tiffany, I think that the heart is used in a metaphorical way, meaning that they say that it represents love because we think of it as that. Although I also think that since our heart is what keeps us alive, our heart represents love because it is life. We love life, and without it, we wouldn't love. That is a thought that came to my mind as I analyzed your question. I also think that there could really be a reason why the heart represents love. Or, this can be like what I said about innocence. It is seen differently by different people. Maybe people have different reasons why the heart is what represents love.
I also wonder why the hearts, and not the brain. In the brain is where everything happens; your brain is what makes you feel love or loved. All of the feelings happen there, so why doesn't the brain represent love?
Innocence ad love anre both abstract ideas that can be defined in many different ways because there are many ways of showing each.