Something To Remember

    Everyone has been through something that they will remember for their whole life. Something that is permanently glued into their brain and no matter who or how many times someone tries to take it out, they can't because that memory is safe guarded into their minds. However, some memories are good and are worth cherishing, while others are horrifying and no matter how much we want to forget about them , we simply cannot because they are engraved into our heads. Something like this happened to a young boy named Ishmael Beah, who was forced into a world of pure bloodshed and extreme terror at a young age of 12 when his family died right in front of his eyes and when he went to go seek shelter, he was made a child soldier. Watching Ishmael's videos made me realize how lucky I am to be safe and secure in my house and in my city. It made me think about how grateful I should be about the fact that when I was 12 years, I was sitting at home watching t.v. with my family. But unlike Ishmael who lost his whole family in a blink of  an eye, I can relate to him because I lost my grandfather this past Christmas due to cancer. My grandfather was my best friend. He was always that one person in the whole  family that always told me to keep going no matter how hard things got. Losing him really made me realise that I should've thanked him for all that he's done, and now that he's gone, I can't and that will always be my biggest regret. There was another article that I  read called 'Teaching Kids To Kill' and it talks about how the murder rate has increased due to video games and media and how these two factors when put together can lead to big destructions. The connections between this article and the video is that they both talk about young children that are being manipulated into doing someone else's dirty work.  The one main concept that I think is worth holding on to is courage. This one word is what I think describes Ishmael the best. Despite what he saw and went through at such a young age, he still decided to move on with his life and to do something that he knows his parents will be proud of and despite what he saw when he was young, his attitude never changed.