Blog 8 - personal essay 1st draft

Rebecca Wood
October 1, 2009
ENG 3017.01
Dr. Chandler

The meaning of Florida

I knew they were gone as soon as I walked through the door. I just came home from work and there was my mother, sitting at our small kitchen table, and my father standing by the door. He had been waiting for me to come home so he could open the door for me, which was something very unusual in my house. So, there they both were, just standing there with subtle smiles and glossy eyes. My Great Grandparents were dead.

The absurd thing is how they died. Some may relate their death to the movie “The Notebook,” or “Titanic,” but even though it seems like a love story, I’m not sure if it was exactly a perfect ending, at least for everyone else. After a night of dancing at their local country club, The Moose, as they always did on certain nights of the week, they went home and went straight off to bed. Unknowingly, they forgot to turn off the car ignition that was left on in the garage and the Carbon Monoxide made its way into the house, and in the morning they were gone. They were both asleep together in their beds and felt no pain at all, or so I think.

No one was really sure exactly what happened because they weren’t found dead until a few days later. My dad made his usual calls to them as he always did, since we lived in New Jersey and they lived in Florida. He called and called, and as the days passed and no one answered he became severely nervous; he knew something was wrong. My father loved his grandparents, more than anything else, and he is not one to show love. He was devastated because as he said, “they were all he had left,” since his dad (my grandfather) died of cancer a few years before. I still miss him; I still miss them. So, there it was, they were gone, but it happened the way it should have happened. They didn’t deserve to feel any pain and they needed to leave this earth together.

I went to Florida on vacation to visit my Great Grandparents every single summer since I was two years old. It was our family tradition. It was the same thing every year and sometimes it did get boring, but now when I look back at it, I wish I was still a child going on vacation to Florida with my family. Now a part of my life was broken, a part of me was broken. The vacations were never perfect, they always had downfalls, but it was still a tradition, and even at times when I didn’t want to go, there was still a little excitement inside of me.

Family traditions are a part of everyone. They are brought into culture, religion, and families even make up their own traditions, just as my family did. A tradition is defined as “a continuing pattern of culture beliefs or practices” (website). Going to Florida wasn’t part of my culture or a belief; it was just something we did. I think the word tradition is often used too much to describe specific events relating to a specific culture, but in reality, a tradition can be anything. All over the world people have created their own recipes of family traditions, and going to Florida was mine. So, what happens when the tradition is broken? I believe that the ending of a tradition can absolutely change a person’s life.

The day we left to go on the flight to Florida for my Great Grandparents funeral was one of the strangest days of my life. I couldn’t remember any other time that I wanted to be on that flight as much as I did at that moment, and what a horrible reason to have to go there. I just longed to get away from everything. I wanted to get away from high school, all the petty drama, Elizabeth, and everything else. All I wanted to do at that moment was be on that flight and go back to my tradition.

It’s funny how when people stop having their special traditions, they find someway or want someway to run back to them and their families. When people get married, they want to start their own traditions, but I’ve witnessed many cases where their old family traditions were just fine the way they are so they end up coming back home to visit, especially for the holidays. Before my Great Grandparents death, the tradition of going to Florida had slowly begun to fade away.

At first, it was always my mom, dad, sister, and me, and sometimes even my other cousins, aunts, and uncles would come along. After awhile, we stopped talking to my father’s side of the family with the exception of my Great Grandparents, and one of my father’s sisters. There was an incredible amount of drama and heartache in that situation, which caused the family to break apart. Other than that, my sister, who is eight years older than me, didn’t come on trips to Florida as much anymore, and then soon enough, the tradition stopped all together, since my Great Grandparents were no longer there.

People change; they grow up, and traditions definitely affect that. People can’t be the same after a tradition has ended or is broken. I know I wasn’t ever the same. I was no longer a child anymore. I was pretty much a young adult. It was my senior year of high school, I was graduating, and I was about to go to college. People don’t realize how important family traditions are until they don’t have them anymore, and they definitely don’t realize how much it changes them until they look back on it.

As I stood there, staring at the greenish colored water in the underground pool, I started remembering different occasions when I had been in Florida during the summer. As my family members, the ones we no longer talked to, fought over money and other stupid situations, I just stood there outside by the pool. I remembered times when I was miserable in Florida because of my father’s anger problems, but then I remembered times that were nothing less than amazing. I remembered driving in the car late at night with my mom, dad, and sister, singing “IT’S 3AM, I MUST BE LONELY,” at the top of our lungs from the song 3am by Matchbox 20, and at that moment, everything was perfect. So, maybe I’m wrong, maybe Florida was always perfect, at least in its own way. There were times that could have been a lot better, but it was the way it was and you can’t change that.

Family traditions can bring up good and bad memories for everyone, but I don’t think that makes them any less of a tradition, or any less of something that should always be remembered. They should always be remembered and they should change you. Think back to your family traditions. Were you the same person you are now from the first time you remember doing the tradition? Family traditions can always be enjoyed every single time they occur, but in most cases they don’t. That’s all the more reason to call it a tradition and to make it your own. You shouldn’t change the craziness about it, it should be the way it needs to be because every single thing that happens to anyone in this world is for a reason and has a purpose in some way. Things happen, but it’s up to everyone to figure out why and make the best of it.

After the funeral was over and all the tears were shed and memories were remembered, it was time to go back home. I remember thinking how different everything was going to be now that the tradition ended. I wondered if my dad would be okay, if any of us would be okay, but we were. The tradition was over, but the memory was still there. I could always take the memories with me and anytime I needed a good laugh or even a good cry, I could just think back to Florida.
My tradition was Florida. I always loved Florida and I still do. It has a piece of my heart. Traditions can be anything. Individual people have their own traditions. Everyone likes to do their own special things every so often and it has so much meaning. Traditions can have a huge amount of meaning no matter how small or insignificant it may seem to be, but the truth it is, no tradition is insignificant. Traditions change people, help people grow, bond people together, and they can do whatever anyone wants them to do.

Traditions are more important than people seek them to be. They are definitely more than just a tradition; I don’t think the word gives it justice. I even have traditions with my friends and people I love, and honestly, I don’t know where I would be without them. Traditions are comfort, they are a part of people’s lives, they are me, they are you, they are everywhere in everything, and they will always be remembered.