Writing Feedback / "Be Happy It Happened" - Using A Favorite quotation from an essay or book.. [5]

If you could edit, proofread, and comment about my essay, I would greatly appreciate it. This is for my English III AP class in high school.

Prompt: Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a jumping off point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation at the beginning of your essay.

Be Happy It Happened

The best pie-ces of advice are not always found in the most obvious of places. One of the brightest of minds once said, "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." This advice is most often given after a great era has ended or after a loved one has gone. From personal experience, I know that in a time of depression or state of general sadness, it helps to hear these famous words.

When I was just five years old, my father died. What more could I do but cry? But bawling tears did not help. Some say that letting your feelings out will make everything seem just a little better, but in some rare cases, it does nothing but keep you from moving on. Sitting there with my family and crying over the loss of the most important man in my life, somehow I knew that I had to stop crying. My young mind knew that holding on to what was gone would slowly kill me on the inside.

Crying will not bring back my father, but embracing the memory of him helps him never to be forgotten. Thinking of him now, I know not to cry, because even though he is gone, he was there. I have the best memories of him and those memories can never be taken away. In similar theory:

"Tis better to have loved and lost,
than to never have loved at all."

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

There are times when one may think that something may last forever or at least longer than it does, and when it ends, it is often wished that it could have lasted just a little longer than it did. However, crying over something that has ended will not bring it back, nor will it help that someone to move on. All one can do is be glad that they got to spend at least some time with whatever is gone or whatever was lost.

By moving on and letting go, one may open new doors that otherwise would have stayed closed. A few years after my father died, my mother remarried to a wonderful man whom I know call my father. If I had never let go of the loss of my father, I never would have accepted my step-father as mine, and although he cannot replace what I have lost, he is a wonderful substitution.