Monday, January 4, 2021

How COVID-19 has affected my Family and Broken my Education


 "I want to go to college; I've asked some of my teachers for letters of recommendation, but COVID-19 has limited my participation and my duties fall to my family first, I don't know when I'll be able to focus back on school." 

 (Photo: Paw's Grandfather and Grandmother posted with permission.)

by Paw W. (Grade 12) Editorial Opinion 

Coronavirus (COVID-19), is an illness caused by a virus that can spread from person to person. The virus that causes COVID-19 is a new coronavirus that spread throughout the world. Too many in my culture are getting COVID-19 and the schools and state are not doing enough to give us the information we need about Coronavirus; it is a worldwide disease so everyone is having a little hard time. 

Photo: Paw's Grandfather and Grandmother posted with permission.


Everything changes and it changes every bit of someone’s life. As for me my life changed a lot, not just the ways things change around me, it's my whole life that's changing right now. For example my sleeping schedule because usually I go to bed around 9 or 10,  but nowadays it’s not unusual for me to go to bed in the early morning hours of 1 or 2AM. COVID-19 stops me from playing soccer and having games, and playing futsal in the winter. I was supposed to have a game but with the death rate increased they stopped our first game of the winter season. With everything close it's hard to hang out with friends and family, it’s hard to go to other places. I also lost concentration in everything. The pandemic affects me from doing a good job in school and focusing in school because I used to do my work but now I just look at my work, wondering if I will ever have time to look at it. I missed the opportunity to learn in person, which I like better and I know for fact that it benefits me more than the silly schedule at my school and all of the different online classes.


The Reality of COVID-19 in my Home

 It affects my family and me because everyone in my family has COVID-19 or the symptoms. 


Because my grandparents got COVID-19, our other relatives don’t come visit us because they are scared they will catch the virus. Early this year we found out that my grandpa had cancer and it was mouth cancer, the doctors asked him if he wanted to stay in the hospital but he didn't want to stay in the hospital so he stayed home. That wasn’t very easy though, he can't sleep at night. I have to take him to the hospital every week. I have to stay up with him till 3 or 4 and sometimes he doesn’t even get to sleep. That’s why I don’t go to Schoology a lot. He’s getting weak everyday so he always needs someone to be by his side. He keeps losing weight and his mouth is getting worse. Going to the bathroom is hard, eating is hard because he has cancer in his mouth and can't eat normal food anymore so we have to find food that's not hard for him to eat. 


Forced to live as an Adult during this Pandemic

I’m the only one who can drive, so whenever he runs out of food, I’m always the one that has to take my mom or sometimes my grandma around the store. It's also hard for my parents because they are the only people who pay for everything for the family and everything for the house and because of COVID-19 they don’t get to work full time and lost so many hours at their jobs. They don’t have the money to pay the house bill but luckily we live in Public Housing so we have to pay less for the house bill. Buying what we want at this time is hard because we have no money. As for my aunt she is having a new child so I have to help babysit the older children and her husband has to go to work everyday, sometimes even has to go out of state. As for my grandma she always has problems with her legs. 


SOS, please...

I'm the only one who's not sick or hurt so I have to do basically everything. 


Driving is like my everyday job. I wake up at 7am and drive around until noon, then I have to babysit until the sun goes down then watch my grandparents at night. My grandma helps me watch my grandpa but sometimes she’s sick herself. I have to look after her as wellI don't really get enough sleep. With everything that is happening right now I feel like I have two houses because I have to sleep at my grandparents house but go home in the morning around 7am. Even though school is very important to me, I have to focus on my family first.