Paper 3- Journey, Pilgrimage or Quest (Nonfiction writing) - Essay Example

Rather, my life was led with a veil pulled over the jealousy and hatred that my cousins and their parents had for me. When my grandfather died. he had left a sizable inheritance to his family thanks to the property that he owned. His children collectively decided to sell the property in order to come into money which they could use for their future. I was fortunate enough to have been given a chunk of that inheritance by my parents. They had always been proud of my money handling skills since the time that I learned what my school allowance was all about and they knew that I would spend the money I inherited wisely and frugally.

After the inheritance was divided equally, it appeared that I was the only one of the cousins who managed to get a cash share of my grandfather's estate. Needless to say, this was something that unbeknownst to me, my cousins held against me. It was this jealousy that ate away at their beings since the day that the inheritance was turned over to all parties concerned. The fact that we all still continued to live on the family compound, although with separate land titles already, made matters even worse.

My parents had decided that it would be in everyone's best interest if the land that our house stood on was transferred to my name. After all, they were not getting any younger and I was becoming increasingly involved in the day to day affairs of my parents. Putting my name on the title was something that they believed to be logical, since I stood to inherit the property when the proper time came anyway. As word of my good fortune spread among my relatives, so did their envy and hatred towards the one they named “The Chosen One”, a monicker that I refused to accept because I was not chosen by anybody, I just proved to have a good head on my shoulders when compared to my other cousins.

Other events that unfolded in our intertwined lives further fueled their anger at my seemingly good fortune. By that time I already knew that I could live with their jealousy. There was nothing I could do about that and, although the great divide now existed between my cousins, uncles, aunts, and my own family, my parents refused to leave the family home. Even though I begged them many times to simply sell the house and leave, they refused to do so. Telling me more than once that I would only be able to leave the place once they had both died already.

They refused to be uprooted and moved to a strange, new place to live in. But all that changed one fateful afternoon. I had gotten into my car and headed out to attend to some errands for the day. Before I left, I saw my cousin's motorcycle parked alongside the sidewalk outside the family compound. I felt a tinge of fear at the sight of the motorbike. This male cousin of mine hated me the most of all the cousins who lived with us on the compound. He had done his best to physically harm me numerous times before.

The first time, he tried to run me off the road with his SUV as I rode my bike to complete an errand at a nearby grocery store. We happened to share the same road space so he decided to unleash his road rage upon me. I was lucky enough to survive that brush with death. Suffering only a few bruises and scrapes since I was wearing a bike helmet at the time. I should have worn elbow and knee pads while I was at it! My street encounters with that cousin of mine culminated in the events of that