My life started off differently from other kids' lives. It consisted of cold, white hospital rooms, a bald father, and a timid mother. I was 6 and couldn’t comprehend why my father was leaving forever. I guess cancer makes little kids confused, like they’re incapable of understanding it--and it’s consequences. My mother made me get into sports as a hindrance in order to blur out my thought process of the loss of my dad (and possibly to extract every ounce of energy in me because, you know, kids contain a lot of that stuff) and to my surprise I liked this new distraction.
It started with soccer. Soccer was okay-- it was fast-paced and it was fun. I had grown to ease my before-a-game jitters with the wet grassy smell on Saturday mornings. In a loud half Salvadorian and half Puerto Rican family, me playing soccer was a big deal so I played it for a while. Once I hit middle school, I got interested in basketball. I loved it immediately, although I was definitely not the best player on the court, I enjoyed it and had remembered that it was my father’s favorite sport. I played it for my father even though it was hard for me to understand every technique. I started playing in 6th grade and stopped playing mid-way through 7th grade--there was a gut-wrenching obstacle.
This was not my choice but something that--just occurred to me, it was the beginning of my knee injury. In 7th grade I minorly hurt my knee, ignored it, and continued to participate in sports. I didn’t think it was anything serious, but then after every game discomfort was the only thing that remained in my hips. Little did I know that the body's way of compensating the function of your knees is by utilizing your hips to help it stabilize. My hips were extremely strained which worsened my knees, but I was not aware of that. This then led to my late 7th grade year where I was scrimmaging with some teammates and I went up for a lay-up. I landed wrong and dislocated my knee. I can still remember how I felt that day when it all happened. I vividly remember one of the coaches stupid response when I asked him for help: “just walk it off”, I was like dude that’s the whole point I can’t walk. I was so agitated by the thought that this injury quickly gained the power to make me feel vulnerable.
After I had left school to receive medical attention, I eventually found out that I tore the Anterior Cruciate Ligament in my knee and had to get ACL reconstruction surgery because the ligament was in severe non functioning conditions. Getting injured and experiencing the whole process of recuperating really caused me to never play the same again. The fear of relieving that pain was inevitably drilled into my mind. I know I originally played basketball to honor my father, but I know that just being me is enough for him to be proud of me up in heaven. Although this injury has left me scared, literally and figuratively, I would never take it back.
God does things for a reason and I would never ask for a do-over because like my dad used to say, “It’s the cruel reality, but our scars are like tattoos, they are left on us forever to tell the stories of our lives, most importantly to tell people that our resilience is unmeasurable”.
I was never the type to write something that is about myself directly like this Memoir. I am usually a shy person and I don’t like to share anything about my life with people unless it’s necessary. In my English class, we did a poem workshop and everyone posted a poem. I read one of my peer’s poems that made me cry, and what amazed me is that I don’t know her very well but her poem impacted me so much that it made me reminisce about my life. Because of this, I decided to write a memoir and share it because I've realized that it makes you look at people a little differently. We grow to respect other people without even knowing them.
This piece made me feel for the author, especially the part of the coach telling her to "walk it off'. That line ticked me off. I had always known she had gotten injured in middle school but I was never aware of how this injury impacted her and her life. The introduction had caught me off guard because I hadn't understood it at first but when I did, it hit me, hard.
--Nohemi Lopez