Amir's Mind example essay topic

Rain clouds filled the sky as our car turned left into Lake Forest Memorial Park. It was the 3-year anniversary of the death of Amir. Amir was one of my dearest friends, as kids, we would spend hours building an indoor tent in my cousin's room, and we had a sort of childhood friendship that was sacred in its own innocent way. Amir chose to take his life three years ago. So on that rainy, gloomy day, his closest family and friends gathered by his grave to mourn his death. Amir's death really took a toll on all those close to him, including me.

As the small drops of rain tapped on the picture engraved in the gravestone, I started to look back on my life, and tried to remember my friend. The never-ending question ran through my mind again and again. It is almost permanently attached to every thought I ever have of him. The question is simply: why? Why would he do such a thing? Amir was living in a world that lived in before he died; that of a typical teenager.

When failing a math test, being rejected by a crush, or being teased by a bully meant the end of the world. These things meant everything to us, and when they didn't turn out right, we gave up and thought that our life was miserable. I use 'we' because I used to feel the same way that Amir did. Superficial things meant everything to me, like how many friends I had or what kind of clothes I owned. We were blinded from the reality that these things were merely props in the screenplay of our life, and that a good play can be done without the props. There were often times where a break-up with a boyfriend, or a fight with my parents was painful enough to try and lead me to the same fate as Amir.

Then, when the news came of Amir's suicide, it hit me real hard. Suddenly my world changed. Everything around me altered, and it was as if I was looking at everything from a new light; a darker, deeper light. I would see Amir's parents, who were like ghosts walking on earth. Every bit of life was drained out of them, and smiling seemed humanly impossible to them.

I saw how the choice of one person crushed the hearts and strangled the hopes of everyone around him. Looking at the people who loved my friend so much made me realize just how much Amir's decision impacted us: it literally put a hole in my hearts where it was once filled with childhood joys. People often say that a person who commits suicide is selfish, but I believe that I am the only one who truly sees what was going through Amir's mind. But to see how much the people around him were hurt by his self-righteous act, it put me in a position to rethink my life. I now see that to live for superficial things is really to live a fake life. All those things that I once thought were the center of my universe have now morphed into the backdrop, and realism has stricken me hard.

When I returned to school and to my habitual way of life, it was as though nothing around me changed, but I knew that I had changed. When I listened to my friends talking about what outfit they were going to wear to a certain party, it seemed almost ridiculous to me to be worrying about such an insignificant thing. There was a point in my life when I too would join in the conversation and discuss that khaki pants would look absolutely wonderful with a blue top and a silver necklace I had seen in the window of a store at the mall. But after going through such an enormous shock, to find out that my childhood friend gave up on his life, those khaki pants or that silver necklace seemed so close to the surface, whereas my mind was sinking deep in the waters of self-realization. I think that going through such a heartbreak and the seeing the effect it has on everyone really made me stop and think about what life is really about. If Amir had stopped to realize that these things that were tormenting him, and ultimately caused him to cut his life short, are all just artificial parts of life, maybe he too could come to the reality that I have now come to.

I now see that we are all headed in the same direction, but Amir just chose to take the easy way, and that the easy way is not always the right way. I try to live my life one day at a time, and overcoming bumps and obstacles has become an important part of my life. These past three years have been an extended turning point in my life, where I try to look at things differently. Life is an endless series of ups and downs and that is what creates energy for me, and to throw it all away in one intense moment would mean a lifetime of misery and desperation to those around me. One instant second of relief for me would be an eternal retain for someone else. A raindrop landing on the tip of my nose broke my thoughts and I focused back into my surroundings.

The sounds of crying and sniffling and an overall haunting feeling filled the damp air. As I looked around me I could see the faces of the ones I loved, their eyes filled with tears of sorrow: tears that could have been avoided. I looked at how many smiles those tears could have turned into, if only Amir could have had this sense of broadened perspective that I now have.