Recently there have been terrible wildfires in the Orange County area. Fires that are able to take away homes, take away belongings, and take away lives. Teachers and other students here at Fountain Valley may have been affected in some way due to these events. I even had ashes in my driveway! When I first heard the news my mind was racing with questions. What caused it? How close is it to me? Is anyone I know affected by it? Is my uncle there fighting the fires right now? But most importantly I asked myself, “What would happen if I were one of the people affected by these fires?”. I thought about my friends and family and wondered if anything would be the same as it was right now if I were living in their shoes.

So Thanksgiving is approaching us. We think back to the things that are most important to us. Friends and family. Every year we travel to northern California to visit my dad’s side of the family for Thanksgiving. Even under these circumstances, with COVID-19 and such, we have still planned to go back up north once more. Getting to see my cousins, aunts, uncles, and especially my grandparents. Because who knows how much longer they’ll be with us. I cherish the times that they hung out with us just watching me and my cousins play on our Wii. Or the times that we go out to eat at their favorite restaurants. But the one thing I feel guilty about is my immediate family. All I’ve done almost nothing for them and haven’t been that great of a child. I just sit on the computer all day and yell while playing games. But I will make it my responsibility to make it up to them. To visit them often when I move out, to buy them gifts when they get older, and be grateful for the life they have given me. Unlike my other responsibilities in life, like chores and other meaningless things, I won’t run away from this one.