Cole Bailey

Writing 1

Noelle Nagales

September 9, 2022        

Language & Literacy Narrative Final Draft

One meaningful moment which has altered the way in which I read and write is one of the first times I was able to fully express myself and my emotions. When I was ten years old I was visiting my grandma in Seattle who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Being this young I wasn’t sure what I could do to help her. Growing up in a religious family all I was taught to do was pray and that’s what everyone around me was doing. I was always told that the more people who pray the better, so that’s exactly what I planned on doing. The very next day after seeing my grandma, not knowing what was to come, I created an Instagram account dedicated to her and grew the number of people who were praying for her. For my very first post, I posted a picture of her and me and for the first time in my life, I posted a caption. A caption on Instagram is a little message that you write under the picture you post, the captions I put under my posts today are normally short and without much meaning but for this first post eight years ago it was nothing like these short captions I use now, it was an emotional, heartfelt message encouraging people to pray for my grandma so I wouldn’t lose my best friend. This was one of the first times I had ever truly expressed my emotions, and it was through the use of social media. The support from friends, family, and people I had no idea existed before making this post, was truly amazing and encouraging to see. As a boy, you are often taught that you are not allowed to express certain emotions and that you must portray yourself as this strong figure no matter how broken you truly are. My entire life I was taught this and for the first time, I had broken the barrier and expressed my emotions not only to the people around me but to any person in the world who had clicked on that Instagram post. All the encouragement I had received on the post showed me a positive aspect of showing one’s emotions which gave me an open mindset to continue doing it in the future. However a few days after I made the account my grandma lost her battle with breast cancer and tragically lost her life. This loss left me devastated as I had lost my best friend during the time and felt like everything I had done and all the prayers were for nothing. It wasn’t all for nothing though because what I did gain from this was the ability to express my emotions and feelings through writing. From this point on I continued to use social media as a way to express myself and gain prayers and help for others such as Ruby McGeehee who was a 3-year-old girl who was diagnosed with down syndrome and told she would never be able to live the normal life her mother had wanted for her. Her mother came to my fifth-grade class and asked us to pray for her. This quickly became a routine thing as she loved the way all thirteen of us cared for Ruby and how much we enjoyed praying for her. I eventually made an Instagram account for Ruby as well where I expressed how deeply I cared about this little girl and how badly I wanted her to grow without thinking she was different from anyone else, as well as encouraging others to pray for her as well. This was April 2015, Ruby just graduated from 5th grade this past June and I gotta see her walk the stage just like I had always prayed for. She also graduated with an honor roll which was extremely special because the doctors said she would never be able to go to a normal school in the first place. Ruby’s mom still texts me updates about her and how much progress she has made since she first brought her into Mrs. Bradshaw’s fifth-grade class. Although my grandma had passed away I didn’t give up on the message I learned from that day which was that I can always express myself and my emotions as well as use social media to garner support for people in need, without this lesson I would have never seen the miracle which Ruby McGeehee truly is. While the lesson I learned was that I can always express my emotions and ignore the “man up” comments it doesn’t mean you must do it through social media, these are some of the only times I ever have. The point is from that day forward I didn’t hold my emotions in, but instead let them out through my writing. I had bought a journal during this time and whenever I needed to express myself I would grab my journal and my Mr. Sketch watermelon-scented marker and express any hardships or problems I was going through, even though I wasn’t saying these thoughts out loud it was nice to no longer be holding onto them. Being a man isn’t about holding in your emotions to make people around you think you are strong but instead finding positive ways to express those feelings and I discovered that day, mine was writing.