Justin Dhanda

Ms. Hicok Parker

English 1A

Narrative Essay #2

Final Draft

15 September, 2011

Never Give Up If I was able to answer the question, “how many siblings would you like to have and what gender would you like them to be?” I would without a doubt reply, “I’ll take two brothers please!” But you see life isn’t just a fast food restaurant. It’s way more complex than that. You really have to just take what you get and make dew with it because in reality things do not always go your way. I wasn’t blessed at birth with the two brothers I wanted so badly, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have a great childhood. I had an amazing family who loved me unconditionally, and wouldn’t you know it. I had two sisters! They were both several years older. But, I wouldn’t trade these girls for the world because they cared for me and showed their love by always playing games with me and just being around to make me happy. But as I grew older and headed to third grade, I needed something more, something stronger than two wimpy girls to wrestle or fight with. At this time, it was almost if God came down from the Heavens to answer my prayers. My parents walked in the room and informed me that we were moving to Niles. A beautiful, little town in Fremont. And I’ll never forget the glorious moment when they said, “it will be great for you Justin, you’ll be living right down the street from your two cousins, Jack and Athen.” I exploded with excitement as if I was a firework on the fourth of July! I guess life does go in your favor once in a while. All I knew, was that I had two brother-like figures to look up to and to learn all the cool things big brothers were supposed to teach you as a younger sibling. At that point, I could only imagine the things we’d get into. The first day of moving in to my new house, I barely spent anytime, in my new house. I had always known of Jack and Athen and I had always seen them during the holidays when the family would get together. But we never had the chance to actually get close with one another. We were still very young so we had plenty of time to grow up and mature together. And the best part was, that we couldn’t have had more in common. We all loved to play sports and when we weren’t playing sports, we were brainstorming of different ways to keep ourselves occupied. Sometimes, while brainstorming, we’d get into harmless arguments that would rapidly progress into intense wrestling. Me being the smallest, I would get tossed around like feather but I held my own. I never gave up. And that was another good thing about having Jack and Athen around, I picked up on little things like to never back down or never give up. It’s the little life lessons like that, which helped shape the person I am today.
* * * The years flew by and still nothing had changed with our status of being brothers. I was about seventeen years old now and never did our age difference of just a few years ever get between our great relationship. We did nearly everything we could together, for the time being. It was a big shock when Jack left to College. Since I had moved to the neighborhood, we had never been split up like this. It was even worse when Athen went away and I had to wait back and watch both of them leave. We had always planned of doing big things when we got older, and we still had the rest of our lives to do so. But at this moment it seemed impossible. Athen would always visit from Fresno and after two years Jack had moved back to go to a college closer to home. We were still without a brother. Just like the good old days, Jack and I were sitting around the house brainstorming for something big, something crazy. All of a sudden, a light bulb arose from the top of Jack’s head and his face lit up and he said to me. “Lets go on a bike ride!” I thought to myself, this guy’s crazy, we always rode bikes and yeah that would be fun for a few hours. But this was not your typical summer day bike ride. He wanted to ride across America! We always wanted to do something big. Well this topped the charts. I was in from the get go and as soon as we called Athen, he immediately arranged his schedule so he could make it home. And he proposed a brilliant idea to ride for a cause. He wanted to ride for breast cancer, so to let everyone know our purpose of riding, we always had something pink to wear. It was a great idea, especially because my grandmother from my mother’s side had past away due to breast cancer. Which was also Jack and Athens’ grandmother from their father’s side.
* * *
We had spent about a week and a half planning everything, so by this time, we were set to go. We wanted to start at the countries edge, so we headed to the coast of San Diego. From there, the journey was on. One of our family friends had bought an RV for us to sleep in at night and it worked out perfectly because he drove and Jack, Athen, and I rode our bikes to meet him at our mapped out check points. Our goal was to make it from San Diego all the way to Florida in a time span of two and a half months. We had no time to waste. I cannot begin to explain how tiring it was to pedal up these massive hills we had to pass throughout all the states. They seemed endless because of the miles of road and nothing else in front of us. Not to mention the heat waves messing with our perception. When we finally made it out of California, and into dreaded Arizona, the temperature seemed to rise beyond belief. It was consistently over 110 degrees. It was seriously like this until we got out of Texas, which Texas was the hottest, and driest out of all the states. It’s a good thing we had packed loads of water to keep us from dehydration or even heat stroke. At many chapters of this journey, times were miserable. We longed for more welcoming states because so far, the states we had passed through were brutally kicking our butts. Louisiana and Mississippi were probably the easiest to ride in and went by fairly quick. The weather was much more lenient in comparison to Arizona or Texas. The mood was actually relaxing and care free because of all the green. Every tree was seemingly healthy and well nourished. It must have created a more freshened quality of air. Now, when we got to Alabama, things got pretty strange at times. It was a spectacular display of scenery and all the people were so friendly. The dogs on the other hand, were not so welcoming. We got chased multiple times by packs of dogs for no apparent reason. It was to the point where you had to pedal for your life, literally. I have no clue as to why this happened but it’s all part of the experience I guess. Somewhere around two and a half weeks after Alabama, we had made it all the way to Florida. Surprisingly, we had reached our destination in approximately two and a half months on the dot and we had accomplished our goal of doing something vast among our imaginations. We could finally rest and cherish what we had done not only for ourselves, but also for the many people who suffer from breast cancer. We felt like heroes who gave others courage to fight the deadly disease and survive.
We had left home, my brothers and I, as young adults living the dream only to return as men with an achievement so prestige, few can say they have accomplished. It was more than just an adventurous bike ride that we had planned it to be. We learned how to live on our own and off the land. We learned how to fix problems when things didn’t go our way. We learned how to survive. And that just goes to show, you can beat the odds when they aren’t in your favor. And for everyone out there struggling in any situation. Whether you are homeless or fighting a deadly disease, whatever it may be. You can overcome it and win. Never lose faith. And most importantly, never give up.