I watched as the two people were shot down, their souls evaporated into heaven. The thought of two people being shot while simply walking down their neighborhood street was terrifying. Doing no harm to anyone, the two were just walking. When I saw this story on ABC Chicago News, it made me think about their families. It made me feel horrible to think about their families, arriving at the crime scene to see one of their own, dead. If I think too much about this, it becomes unbearable. It is so unfair. People should be able to walk down their own neighborhood street without worry. These people just walked down their street and got killed. I feel like I can walk down my street safely every day. Because they lived in a different situation, they died and their families may suffer forever over this senseless tragedy.

The events in this news story caused me to reflect on my own life. It made me realize that compared to those suffering families, the life I have is great, and even if I never get anything more than I have today, I should be happy, right? The thing is, I’m not that happy. I’m going through a time in my life when things do not usually go as planned or as I would like. My grades are not where they should be, my grandmother suddenly developed an illness that makes no sense and I do not know what I’m doing. In some ways, I feel like a lost cause and as a result I often feel lonely. I tend to take things too seriously and some say I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself. I feel like I am carrying the world on my shoulders. For example, I feel guilty about my grandmother’s mental illness because in the early stages I called her crazy. Still I believe that I should be happy because many other people have problems as bad, and maybe even worse. As in the news story, there are families who have to deal with the loss of a family member. I keep going back to the thought of losing a close family member and it is just agonizing. The thought of it makes me stop and consider that my problems although important to me are not as tragic as they sometimes feel.
Since that story, I look at things differently than I did before. I live in a nice house and even though it is a valuable thing, I never thought about it as a huge advantage before. Now when I see things such as the homeless, I think about how lucky I am to have such a great life.
What I believe that I have learned from this story is that I must be thankful for what I have and keep my day to day problems in perspective. Family is more important than day to day problems because problems come and go but family is never forgotten. I believe that family is one thing in life that people fail to cherish more than anything. People take advantage of family being there but when family is lost, there is a void that cannot to be filled.