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Eulogy/reflection

The person that passed away in my family was my Grandfather Steve McCarter. To me, he meant a lot and was like a second father. As head of my family he had so much wisdom and insight. Every Time I went to visit I would leave with new knowledge of the world and bit by bit he was telling me what to expect. I decided to create my sugar skull to reflect him because he just passed recently and I thought it would be a perfect way to honor him. The anniversary of his death is also coming up. Remembering him seemed like the right thing to since he is the most recent family member I have lost. He was loved by all of my family on my mother's side and he continued to make everyone he was near smile. He drove my grandmother crazy, but even she knew how special of a person he was. My Grandmother was the saddest at the funeral and still probably the saddest today.

My Sugar skull represents him mostly because of it’s hair. My pop pop’s hair was always slicked back and he always had on a sharp hat whenever he left the house. Even in his late age with his silver hair he would still slick it back and was proud of it. He always used to express how happy and lucky our family was that no one on our side has gone bald. He was never shy and never afraid to speak his mind, he was an inspiration and while he was alive I made him proud. I would go some time without seeing him but that just meant when I did. He had a lot more to tell me about life as well as his own life. As long as I can remember he has always been there. From when he used to babysit me with my Grandmother to hen I went off to high school. When someone is always there it’s normally hard to imagine them gone.

I still think about him. I still envision him in his pop pop chair at his house watching sports and old western movies. even though he’s gone it never feels that way. I guess that is the hardest part. STill, it feels like he just went on another doctor trip or he’ll be back. My grandfather was a true gentleman, always telling the young men of the family to always carry a handkerchief. To always respect and care for women and to always carry the family name with pride. Even when he spoke to me, he didn’t care that my father decided to give me his ;last name, as far as he was concerned I was and still am a McCarter.

Dia de los Muertos has opened my mind to celebrating rather than grieving. With my Grandfather’s anniversary coming up I was originally sad and dreading the day it comes because I am forced to think about the fact that he’s gone. My Family and I never handle the death of a loved one well, yet we love to remember them. Personally, I try not to think about the loved ones I have lost, I just think it is easier on me emotionally that way. I think that dwelling on it too much doesn’t serve any other purpose but to make me feel emptiness and sorrow while I think about that person as they once were. Dia de los Muertos has taught me that it’s ok to remember. That it is ok to talk about someone who has passed in a positive way and that it doesn't always have to be a sad depressing time when you talk about the dead. INstead, it can be filled with nostalgia and happiness as people honor the dead. I love the thought of keeping the dead alive and not letting them completely die. Remembering can be healthy and it’s a new idea that I am still getting used to. But I will slowly get better when talking about the dead or even acknowledging that they are gone. Both are very hard for me personally. I appreciate the opportunity I was given to remember and honor someone important to me. To give my loved one significance. I think that this is the best way to honor the loved ones who have passed.

Hola, mi nombre es Sulaiman Hadi. Yo soy de Philadelphia, PA y yo soy dieciséis años.

Mi abuelo fue de Cincinnati, Oh. Se trasladó a Philadelphia cuando él era más joven para iniciar una vida mejor para su familia.

Fue un buen atleta y un buen padre. Su nombre fue Steve McCarter.

Mi abuelo fue alto y atlético. Tiene buen pelo y su sonrisa todo el mundo hizo sonreír.

Ahora, estoy en un lugar tranquilo y relajado. Estoy bien con dejarlo ir y lo acepto.

Me siento triste pero también me siento feliz. Porque sé que vivió una buena vida y le dio todo lo que pudo.

Chris Jones

Spanish 2 Project Uploads

January 22nd 2016

Dia de los Muertos

Chris Jones

11-9-15

Spanish Project Write Up

When I was assigned this project that would allow me to look back on a dead family member, I instantly  became excited. Due to the fact that I had just the right person in mind. The person that I chose to do my project on was my grandfather . My grandfather name was Willie Jones,me and my grandfather had a pretty close relationship when I was younger, with him coming to visit me every weekend or so.

He died when I was only 11 years old so it was really hard to remember every little thing about him. But one thing that I do remember is the love that I had for him. He really meant alot to me and my family leaving us very devastated when he passed away . When I first heard he was dead I was shocked but didn't realize the impact until a some months later.

I decided to use my sugar skull to describe my grandfather because the skull can be made to look very unique and different just like my grandfather.The sugar skull reflects my grandfather because of the colors that I used on specific parts of the skull when I was designing it. I first put red and blue beads over the skulls outline to represent police colors due to the long period of time my grandfather spent as a cop. Also I put two stars on the skull to show and represent of how my grandfather always thought of me, As a Star.

Last but not least I decided to just sprinkle gold glitter over the skull to show how my grandfather could light up anything he did or went to.The mask that I designed, in my eyes gives a better resemblance of my grandfather than the skull does. I think this is due to the complexity that the mask has to it. Again as I did on my skull I included the colors blue and red to represent my pop-pop's long years of service as a cop.

I also designed his eyes as I did to show how he always thought of everything with a positive mindset when he was around me. I drew his nose as a red heart to show the large amount of love that he had for me and my family. And last but not least I made his teeth yellow not represent that he had yellow teeth but to represent the big smile that he always had on his face whenever I saw him.Dia de los muertos has opened up my mind about celebrating passed ones because I can see how other people look back on their lost ones and incorporate it on my traditions.

Elogio

Yo tengo quince años y soy un chico por el nombre de Chris Jones. Y mi abuelo nombre fue Willie Jones. Yo vivo en Filadelfia Pennsylvania y yo estoy en el décimo grado. Yo soy a estudiante en la escuela de la instituto de leadership y ciencia . Mi abuelo, mismo yo,  nació y cria en Filadelfia. Después de su hijos estuviera nacido, el categórico a quedarse en Filadelfia.Mi abuelo fue un hombre afroamericano. Él murió de a joven edad de sesenta y cinco años. Él fue el padre de mi madre. Él fue muy cómico y intelligente. Él también fue muy alto y guapo. Él tenía piel marrón y moreno. Actualmente yo estoy aquí en la funeraria con mi abuelo. Ojala aquel yo fue pasajero el tiempo con mi abuelo.Yo soy muy triste consideración alrededor de mi abuelo y su vida. Yo también siento aquel él es mirando bajarse en mi.

Sugar Skull Pictures

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Mask Picture

Aiesha Langley

Spanish

11.13.15

Spanish Eulogy

(Introduction)

Hola! Me llamo Aiesha Langley, Yo soy el joven hija de Robert Langley. Mi padre muero cuando yo doce años.

“Hello my name is Aiesha Langley, I am the youngest daughter of Robert Langley.My father died when i was 12 years old.”

(Origin)  

Mi padre Madre nombre es Belle Myers y su Padre nombre es “Bunky” Myers. Mi Padre nació en el sur de Filadelfia y trasladado a suroeste filadelfia.

“My father mother name is Belle Myers and his father name is Bunky Myers. My father was born in South Philadelphia and moved to Southwest Philadelphia.”

(Identification)

Mi padre es el más antiguo niño de Belle Myers . El tiene dos hijas.

My father is the oldest child of Belle Myers. He has two daughters.”

(Characteristics)

Mi padre era alto and muy comica. El era muy trabajador

My father was tall and very funny. He was also very hardworking.

(Location/Condition)

Yo soy muy triste.  El era mi el mejor amigo. Ha sido un tiempo, y todavía me duele. Que lastima a saber mi abuela perdido primero nacido.

I am very sad. He was my best friend. It's been a while, and it still hurts. That hurts to know my grandmother lost first born.  

Video :

https://www.movenote.com/v/CU_9Nk2kHa16f

Aiesha Langley

Spring Stream - C Band-

Spanish

11.12.15

Q1 BenchMark Dia de los Muertos

The person that passed away was my father. That was a life changing event. That is an event that caused a change in me because i really love my father and losing him was a wake up call for me. It made me realize life is to short and you never know when your last time seeing someone would be. My father means a lot to me because he is an important aspect of my life. He made me who I am today. Losing him made me wanna try harder to achieve my goals because i know he is looking down on me proud and happy for his youngest daughter and for my achievements.Everything i now do is for my dad. Whenever i'm ready to give up i think to myself "no aiesha, you have to keep working hard for dad" or "he is looking down smiling on me".

I personally think that when a girl loses her father or mother her life will never be the same but i think a girl losing her father is more effective than a girl losing her mother because the type of love and attention that girls would receive from the mother wouldn't be the same as the love from their father because i feel as though girls need their father more because they would never experience “the father daughter love”. This event really changed me because it changed my view on life, it changed the way I view myself and others.

It also made me think about the good times i shared with him and all the memories we shared. For example, when i was little we had a chuck e cheese outing. At the time being i was very afraid of chuckee because i don't like people dressed up in costumes up until this day so we were all eating pizza and playing games until chuckie came over and i was so terrified. I hid under the table, but my dad made it clear that whatever happens he will always be there to protect me, he is my protector. qI think about him everyday and the hardest thing was walking across the stage getting my diploma from 8th grade and not seeing his face in the crowd and when i went to my 8th grade dinner dance him not there to see me go like the rest of the crowd hurted me more then anything.

I would do anything to have my dad back in my life to make up for those special moments i had faced, but i know he was with me not physically but mentally. I decided to create my skull about my father because as stated before, my father mean alot to me and he was more than a Dad. He was my protector, my best friend, and anything else I needed him to be.

But now he is my guardian angel.My sugar skull and mask represents my father because I used some of his favorite colors and his favorite things. For example I used the colors he liked and also  colors to represent christmas (the day he passed) and I used car stickers because my dad collected cars and two emojis stickers of two little girls because he has two daughters , me and my older sister the stickers represented things that he love and cherish.

Dia de los Muertos has opened my mind to want to celebrate his life more and reflect on all the good times we shared when he was still here with me and the rest of our family. Even though he isnt here physically , I know he is here with my mentally , and emotionally because he will always be an important aspect of my life and I will always carry him around him around with me. He may be gone be not forgotten.

For this project we had to create a reflection, a eulogy, a video of us reading the eulogy, a sugar skull, and a skull mask in memory of a deceased loved one. I really liked having the opportunity to reflect on and learn about my grandmother, Clare Waxler. I never knew her because she died a few years before I was born, but I wish I did because she was an amazing person.

English Reflection

by Zack Waxler

for Clare Waxler

For this project I chose to focus on my Dad’s mother, Clare Waxler who died on 1996 from renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer). She was born here in Philadelphia, and remained here for her whole life. On July 2nd, 1936 she got married to Samuel Waxler, who was a dentist in south Philadelphia, and shortly after that had four children. For most of her life after that, she was a housewife and devoted her time to raising my dad, my aunts Linda and Marilyn and my uncle Richard. She moved around Philadelphia several times during her lifetime, first she moved from her parent’s house to Samuel’s house (and dental office), then she moved to the house that my dad inherited from them, and I am currently living in. She was in the house that I am living in when she passed away.

Although I never knew her, because she died four years before I was born, I have heard a lot about her and how important she was to my family. Someone in my family described her as “the mortar that held our family together”, because when she was alive, our whole extended family was very close, and when she died the different branches of our family started seeing each other a lot less. My parents always say that they wish I could have met her when she was alive, and that she would have loved to have met my sister and I before she died. I wish I had met her too, because for most of my life I have only had one pair of grandparents (my grandfather (her husband) died when I was three or four, and I don’t really have any memories of him other than vague pictures in my head). She also had a very close relationship with my Dad, which still reflects in him today because of how much he praises her, he only has good things to say about her.

I created my skull and mask for her because I’ve never really learned about my grandmother in depth before, and I wanted to take this project as an opportunity to explore my family’s past. Going into the project I had only heard scattered facts and talks about her, and I was intrigued to learn more. Now that I’ve explored my family’s history, I feel like I can better understand what happened before I was born and how that connects to the present day. She was also one of the closest people to my family, because all of the other people that have died in my family only had distant or infrequent relationships with me. Since I didn’t have any mental pictures of her to model the skull and mask off of, I decided to use more meaningful items and designs. In the creation of my sugar skull and mask, I tried to emphasize how caring she was with the use of various heart shaped objects and warm colors. I also incorporated a lot of blue into the skull and mask, because she was very passionate about that color, and because she took my whole family down to the beach in North Carolina every year.

Learning about día de los muertos has helped me consider a different aspect of death that I had never really considered before. I have an unusually large family, so we experience death more frequently than other families do. When we experience death, we generally go through the same process, where we mourn, have a funeral and bury or cremate the person. Our customs are very different to the ones outlined in día de los muertos, because we generally believe that it isn’t respectful to the deceased to celebrate their passing, and that we “owe” the person the same treatment and customs that we have given everyone else in the family. Pretty much all religions and cultures that I’ve come in contact with in my surroundings seem to support this idea of mourning the dead, and I think it’s interesting that people in the United States (that I’ve seen) have this idea of sad over happy. Although I’ve grown up like this, I completely understand the meaning behind día de los muertos, and would be open to celebrating a person’s death if that is what they believe in. Personally, I would feel bad in a way if I cast a big shadow on my family and friends after I died, so in that way the tradition makes sense to me.

Eulogy

by Zack Waxler

for Clare Waxler

Hola damas y caballeros, yo soy Zack Waxler, el nieto del difunto. Yo no conocí Clare, porque ella murió cuatro años antes nací. Ella fue de sur filadelfia. Ella fue nacer de mil novecientos dieciocho. Su nombre fue Clara cuando ella nació y ella cambió su nombre de Clare porque ella no le gustó su nombre. Ella murió en mil novecientos noventa y seis de cáncer. Ella fue un ama de casa. Ella crió cuatro hijos con su esposo Samuel Waxler, quien murió en mil novecientos. Ella fue amado de mi todo familia. Hoy, yo soy madurar en la mismo casa de Clare. Yo soy feliz vivir en igual sitio vivió. Mis padres son triste yo nunca presenté ella porque ellos siempre hablan “ella amó hijos”. Yo soy triste también porque ella fue un especial persona. Yo deseo quedé ella. Mi vida sería muy diferente. Gracias para la posibilidad hablar y recordar Clare hoy.

Video: https://www.wevideo.com/view/510054511