My Missing Cousin

       The month is May. There are three days until graduation. I am so excited to be graduating, but at the same time, I am really sad about leaving Holbrook High School. The bright side of graduation is that I have four other cousins that are going to be graduating at the same time as me. One of my cousins is named Cristoff Keyonnie.
I did not meet Cristoff until I was in sixth grade attending Indian Wells Elementary School. At this time, I did not know he was my cousin. Back in sixth grade, we use to sing peyote songs together. We sang for fun and to keep people in a happy mood. One Friday, he told me that his family was having a peyote meeting. I was pretty shocked because my dad had told me that we were invited to a meeting with our other family. I was curious to see who's meeting we were attending. Then comes Friday, we arrived at a small, brown house. Out comes Cristoff. I knew it! He was my dad's aunty's daughter's kid. We were related!
After we found out we were related, our friendship got closer. We did everything together! He actually asked our principal, at the time, to take him out of his original classroom, so he could be in my class. Every day at school, we played together. We always played soccer or basketball. He did not know anything about soccer, so I taught him. I didn't know how to shoot a basketball, so he taught me. Every day after school, he would come over to my house to work on homework with me. It was amazing to see how fast our friendship grew because we found out we were cousins.
Of course, sixth grade came to an end. I was planning on attending school in Holbrook, while he was planning on heading out to Tuba City. Unfortunately, we went our separate ways. We still talked here and there, but we became distant because of all the work and the new atmosphere we were experiencing.
When we talked, he would tell me how much he did not like his school. He told me that he was getting picked on because he would sing songs. The other students would say he was "gay" just because he sang songs. I told him not to mind what other people are saying about him and to focus on his work. After a while, I did not hear anything about him getting bullied. I thought things were going great.
Our freshmen year had started. He was still attending school in Tuba City, and I stayed in Holbrook. Things got busier and we had more work to do. I didn't hear anything from him for months. The only times we would talk were on the weekends, only if there was a meeting going on. We didn't say anything about our school life. All we talked about was how everyone was doing back home. I always wanted to ask him if he was still getting bullied, but I didn't want to open up any scars. We talked like this for the next three years.
Finally, our senior year started. It was May 5, 2016, when we planned to have our graduation reception together. We got everything ready and made lists on who were going to be attending. By this time, I totally forgot about him getting bullied. We continued to plan everything out. I didn't pay attention to him and how he was. I was too excited to be graduating.
May 14, 2016, Cristoff told his parents that he was going to hangout with his friends. That same night, he called his parents. He was crying telling them how he was still getting bullied and how he wanted to "leave everything behind." They called my dad and my dad told me. I asked his parents who he was with and his mom told me he went off with the guys that would call him "gay" just because he did wrestling. I think he only did this to be cool with them. I didn't know that he was still getting bullied. We could've talked about it and things would've been better.
Now, it is May 18, 2016, we haven't heard a word or seen Cristoff since Saturday. The cops are looking for him everywhere, but they haven't found him yet. All we can do now, is pray he will return. His parents are telling me to have my reception alone. No one thinks he's going to be coming back. I really hope he does.
Behind every smile, there's always something hiding. That smile could be hiding sadness, anger, or depression. There are a lot of strong people in this world, but everyone has a point of weakness. Once someone reaches that point, you don't know what's going to happen next. Bullying is a big deal. Everyone thinks it's fun and games, until the person getting bullied breaks. Because of bullying, my cousin and I will most likely not be sharing our graduation moments together. Hopefully, he'll come back and everything will alright.

Friends Forever

The end of the school year is here once again. This time, it'll be the last high school year for the class of 2016. Every senior attending Holbrook High School is excited for May 20, 2016, to come. It is great hearing my other peers tell me about what they will be doing after high school or where they will  be going to college. I think it is pretty amazing how we have everything so planned out. We tell ourselves that everything from our high school days will follow us and stay with us throughout life. Everything, as in what we learned. The big question is: what about our friendship?
Ever since we were small kids in kindergarten, we told each other that we were best friends and would be friends forever. On occasion,  our "best friend" would steal something of ours. Then just like that, the friendship we shared is now over. Lucky for us, high school was never like this. The people we've been stuck with for hours on week days for the last four years has become a big part of our lives. Over the last four years, we have grown and matured with each other. We learned the same exact thing and to think exactly the same. We grew trust in one another and decide which other human being we actually like the most. This is where our real friendship grew.
These last few days of our senior year are tough. We are all trying to get good grades that we could take with us to college. We are studying and hoping for the best to pass our class finals. As seniors, in addition, we also have to plan our graduation. As you can see, we are way too busy being stressed out from the real work being thrown at us. We have absolutely no time to think about each other.
We don't think about each other because we tell each other we'll be heading to same college. If we attend the same college, we don't have to worry about not seeing each other. Unfortunately, this is not true. If you take a look at the recent graduates, most of them are not together no more. They started out just fine getting ready to attend the same college, but once they got there, everything changed. They didn't share most or any of their classes together, and they found new friends in their dorms. Either way, they lost contact with one another. Of course, they still talked through social media, but the more they didn't physically see each other, the more distant they became. The only thing that tied them together for years is high school.
It is really scary thinking about each of our friendships. Trying to keep it alive is going to be tough like trying to keep cement from drying up. You gotta keep feeding it with water, but once you run out, it will dry up fast. As seniors, we'll miss our teachers and the way everything runs. Most of all, we will miss each other.