MIRACLE IN THE ANDES
“We all have our own personal Andes.”

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Essay Contest Winner

Chris Rivera

Chris with Nando Parrado at the Author Luncheon honoring Essay Contest winners.

FORGOTTEN FUTURES IN UNFORGETTABLE PASTS
By Chris Rivera

     The lesson best learned in Miracle in the Andes is that life is not a gift, but that life is a prize.  Life is something one has to work towards.  It is something that should not be shaped by our mishaps, but something that should make our misfortunes seem irrelevant.  Nando has proven this in a way that seems almost impossible.  His mother and sister had just dies; that alone would be enough to shatter the strongest of hears, but Nando's love for his father and friends kept him alive.  Although the idea of giving up always laced the back of Nando's mind, he refused to fall prey to the mountain's chilling grasp.  This act of valiance is something that has impacted me significantly.  Often times I have watched myself, and others, act like victims when life presented itself with hardships.  The loss of loved ones devastates us for an overextended amount of time.  The loss of jobs tears apart our families.  Not only do we make ourselves seem overly-victimized, but we have developed programs and medications so that we don't have to overcome our problems at all.  If this book has taught me anything it is simply that the only way to defeat your problems is to make yourself stronger than they are.  If we thrive on the fallacies of our pasts, then we'll never live, truly live, to see a better tomorrow.

     Many times I've buried my head in self-loathing.  I've given up on myself, abandoned my morals, and degraded myself in various ways, simply because these were the easiest escapes.  These escapes offered me temporary relief.  They brought false hope, and foolishly I laid my head down and let these escapes consume me.  What I've read through these three hundred pages, however, is astonishing.  The strength of this man named Nando is a much needed light in a dimly lit world.  This mountain Nando and his friends faced seemed unconquerable.  the slightest winds would tear the skin like the dull end of a razor.  His mother was dead.  His sister was gone.  His friends lay grasping what little of life they could breathe in.  People who he loved, filled with life but moments ago, were now fatalities of a tragedy.  In such a short amount of time, Nando's life was turned upside down, and much was lost in the confusion and disbelief, but through adversity, struggle, and his noncompliance with surrender he overcame his oppositions.  Nando was tempted to give up various times.  to let the mountain take him into its cold white floor, would have been the easiest escape.  To let the pain stop became more and more tempting, but instead of giving in, instead of an easy surrender, Nando grasps the true beauty of life.  He began to understand that life was worth enduring this mountain's trial, even if only to see his father once more.

     "Save your strength for the things you can change.  If you cling to the past, you will die" (Parrado 75).  So many times we take this life, and its wonders, for granted.  We decide that life isn't worth living; we decide to surrender ourselves to chemicals and pills.  We leave our loved ones in despair, burying ourselves in our own personal Andes, but Nando shows us that life is only worth living if you make it so.  Death will always be there; life only happens once, but if we surrender ourselves to our pasts then we will never be able to face our futures.