I drew cards from the deck. They were cards that only my best friend’s aunt, Soniya could understand. Not only because they were in French but also because they consisted of symbols that would soon be my destiny. She said the choice to believe what the cards insisted about the future was in my hands, but she was telling me my life like she had known me from before. It was hard not to believe.

The first one: a casket. Even though I didn’t know what the cards meant I knew that couldn’t be good. She started off by telling me the casket did not necessarily mean death, but instead that a man in my family –no, more specifically, my dad –was sick, and he had been for a while. It was strange that she got that right. My dad had suffered three strokes since I was nine and she went on to tell me my family situation would get worse in the next three months. ‘Really?’ Was the one word that popped into my head. How much worse could it get? But it did. My dad was becoming less and less stable and I had to watch my mom struggle to take care of him. Every day we debated the question of “should we send him to a home where nurses would be able to give him better attention than we could?” and every day we would delay coming up with the answer. It wasn’t easy. We couldn’t just abandon him, so we do the best we can and pray that things only get easier from here.

My second card: a maiden and a lion. The card meant strength. She told me that it symbolized a steadfast friend. The story of the maiden and the lion was that they both used each other’s strengths to overcome their weaknesses –the maiden her human form and the lion his inability to master himself. It was another truth revealed by the cards, because even after four years I still have my best friend keeping me strong. There are times when either one of us feels like giving up but we pull through because we have each other. She has managed to take the negatives, turn them to positives and keep a smile on my face no matter what.

My third card: the sun and the moon. The card meant that there was something to look forward to. She told me it represented a new beginning or a significant event. I take it to mean this year all leading up to graduation. This year has been a remarkable one.

They say “life’s like a roller coaster”. Not just any roller coaster, more like the Titan. You step on to the roller coaster with no idea of what it is like. You know there are ups and downs and twists and turns, but instead of lasting thirty seconds it lasts your whole life time. The climb up is exciting and it gets you anxious. You are high up and can see to the far ends of the city, and then you get ready to take the scary ride back down. The thrill of the ride, though, is the best part. For me, senior year alone was full of its lifts and drops – events that made me stronger and shaped me into a more definite me. And here I am.