How to Survive in the World to Come

What teachers don't teach you in school is that people are real jerks. They teach you to be good and kind and respectful and helpful, and not only do those same teachers go and do exactly the opposite and leave you in the dirt where other kids kick you, but they don't enforce those lessons until it becomes a real fight— and even then, it's really just because they're tired of all the noise. As a matter of fact, they always seem to favor the mean kids. My school, unfortunately, skipped that lesson almost entirely. The only people I had to teach me what it means to be a good person were my parents. I guess you could say I'm one of the lucky ones in that case. My parents never spoiled me like all those brats at school, they never lied or sugarcoated anything. Even if I didn't like what they said, I at least appreciated it in the end.

Now, I know you might be wondering why a sixth-grader would be thinking with such an open mind. Like I said, my parents don't pretend everything is ok when it isn't. Being constantly exposed to the truth earlier, both by them and by bullies at school showing me how cruel people can be, has kind of forced me to grow up sooner than most kids my age; don't get me wrong, I don't mind it, but it just makes me stick out more because I see things differently than my classmates and teachers. It's just that being different puts some sort of target on my back.

The worst part about that target is that no one ever hesitated to shoot at it like it was target practice. Sure, some of the things they bullied me over would be seemingly stupid when I got older, but these things hurt me now. Now is and always will be my priority, as painful as now may be.

Right now is so emotionally and mentally painful, and being on the rotten, cigarette-scented, noisy school bus didn't exactly help that. Outside were all the blurs of New Jersey mid-November colors, and on my lap sat an open journal with tear-stained pages from the days before. It's Thursday, my first day back to school from Florida, where the sun had shined down as if there was no reason to cry as tears still rained from my eyes the majority of the three-day trip. Not only am I exhausted from only getting into my own bed to sleep at two in the morning, but loss and tears and the whole nine yards were hitting me harder than ever right now. I wish my parents would stop telling me to suck it up because death is unavoidable and no matter how much I cry I can't bring back what's lost. My mother especially would say that; she seemed so emotionless about everything even though you'd typically think she would be more upset.

Even though I currently hate her and my dad for feeling the need to tell my teachers what happened, I have to remind myself that they are still my parents. I hate that they had to tell the teachers, I hate how the teachers have to ask in every class about how I’m holding up, and most of all I hate myself for being so weak when I'm asked about it.

“Hey, Bianca. I heard about what happened. How are you holding up?” I'd hear every teacher ask me for the next couple weeks.

Every time there would be tears.

Every time my classmates would look at me as if I were a lunatic or they would laugh.

Every time I would hate myself even more.

So I sit there, journal in my lap and pen in hand, toward the back of the bus, the three guys in my grade being rowdy and annoying, tackling each other and kicking the seats behind me. Luke was huge, and not in a height sense. He always made the most disgusting jokes about things I don't even want to think about. Then there was tiny little Tom, who was always smooshed into the window by Luke because they sat in the very last seat, which was a two seater Luke already took all the room of himself. Finally, Dillon is the biggest little loud mouth I knew, sporting some decently styled black hair and terrible glasses. The kid never knew when to shut up, and unfortunately that was what I saw laughing along with several other classmates all day. Nobody ever knew what I wrote before, but thanks to my parents having to have told my teachers, he knows exactly what the journal is about now.

“Hey guys, look! It's that journal about her dead grandma!” Dillon yells and points to me and laughs so the whole bus, all of the younger kids, could hear him and see me cry. Luke and Tom laugh with him, and so do some of the others I don't know. No one objects to his words. I want to scream, yell, something, but nothing comes but choked air and more tears.

Death is no joke. I would know, considering that's all I want in this moment. Family is no joke either, and I would know that because family has been all I've ever had. People never wanted to deal with me— they still don't. Other than from my family, I wasn't used to any kind of attention. All of a sudden everyone's eyes are on me, and it's definitely not in the way I'm used to with my family. I don't know how to deal with this negative attention; even though things like this have happened before on a lesser degree, I never learned because generally I was ignored rather than made fun of. Instead, I could only cry and look out the window trying to hide my humiliation.

The walk up to my house from the bus stop, although really just five minutes, feels like forever. The feeling of the crisp, cool wind was only amplified by the tear stains on my cheeks, closely resembling the empty feeling I felt inside. This is far worse than when they told me I couldn't sing in third grade and I almost completely gave it up. This is far worse than they made fun of me for my terrible fashion sense in fourth. It's far worse than when they called me names because I played the guys’ game at recess with them in fifth grade. Every year has been something different, and this year is the lowest blow yet. This was something real, true, and dear to me and they still treated it as a joke.

Abuelita is gone and not a single person understood how a twelve-year-old could have such a strong relationship with a grandmother that spoke a different language.

The fact that they don't understand is fine, it's just how they chose to deal with the misunderstanding.

When I get home, it seems as if my mom didn't even understand.

“¡Cállate la boca niña! Tough up, stop being such a baby!” she yelled after I told her what happened. “Life happens, people die.”

I stand there, staring at her in the closet to disgust a sixth grader can muster toward her own mother. How could she be so heartless as to say that about her own mother? Is this what she wants of me? Did she want me to be emotionless, distant, stoic…?

Little do I know that it will take me years to fully accept and understand why she was that way. She just hates to see me cry. She wants me to be ready, no matter how old I become, for loss, for emotional and mental beatings, for anything that life throws at you. It's not that she doesn't care— it's quite the opposite. She may not have shown it so much, but deep down she was just as much of a mess as me. She just handled it differently. While I would still never be the same as her, I would change, because looking back to this day, I truly will learn a huge lesson in how to survive in the world to come.