2026 – Kaylee Monty – Granger High School HS

Grief Through Growth

My father’s urn sits upon my desk making me wonder on the daily why addiction decided to take hold of the person I desperately wanted to get better. For years, my family and I were stuck in the endless cycle of seeing my father try to commit suicide through the use of alcohol. While it broke my family to see him go on a ride of being better to getting worse, the most negative impact of his drinking was how rude and threatening he was. My father may have not been perfect, but we felt happy with him; however, when drunk he said things that made my oldest brother and I hate him. It’s always going to be difficult to see people you care about go through pain, but being forced to go through the same pain that caused them to struggle in the future is soul crushing. I never imagined that the person who would call me “useless” and “a waste of time” would be the man who said he’d protect me. 

I believed my father would change and get better for years because of the times I saw him quit drinking; though, that didn’t last long. Being lied to, constantly feeling unhappy, and stressed about what may happen in my home made me someone that I regret being. I let his hatred for what happened to him in his childhood reflect on how I felt about myself. My family screamed, cried, lashed out at him because we desperately wanted that relationship with him. While my family continued to try to get him to change, I gave up. I realized that he wasn’t the person I remember, and what he did was never something I would forgive, even if he was still here. I love him to bits and pieces, but my father treated me like I was the reason for his issues. I started questioning my own self worth with each slurred insult he sent my way. Everytime I heard him threaten to not only harm himself but the people I care about, made me wish he would just leave my family and I alone. 

That endless cycle was present in both my middle and high school years. School became the only recurring place that I didn’t have to see a skeleton of man slowly inch his way into his own grave. I chose at that time that I wanted to be someone better than him. I wasn’t going to let his addiction affect my ability to create a future for myself. However, there always were challenges even within the walls of my school. I felt like I had this smoke of hatred and a feeling of not being good enough surrounding me. That smoke caused this unhealthy dependence on showing others that I was worth their time. I struggled with getting help, even though I based who I was on how well I did. Anxiety wrapped around my mind, and it became so at home there that I lost the chance to feel that relief that I wanted so badly. It was constant. I never was going to feel good enough in my school because that wasn’t the approval I craved; I wanted to be good enough for my family, my dad. 

Days felt like years inside that household, but as I got older I finally started to see that my dad’s issues weren’t my fault and they definitely were not my burden. Life wasn’t meant to be filled with the constant pity party that my dad craved. It wasn’t meant to feel like I was trapped on a gurney of desperation with the choking straps of lies holding me down to that false sense of safety. My existence was meant to be my own! I should be the only one determining whether or not I’m good enough! Those thoughts ran circles around my mind as I watched my dad once again go through withdraw shakes and throw slurring stones of hatred. At that moment, I didn’t care. My self worth finally escaped the confines of the words “useless” and “a waste of time”. Neither were true. I won’t say that I don’t struggle with the trauma I experienced, but my family kept me afloat when my hands slipped on my worth. The thing that brought about those realizations was the people and animals I surround myself with. That’s how I pulled myself out of the world of addiction. I chose to see that there are souls that care about me and not just my achievements. My story wasn’t meant to just be filled with the constant worry that I was “useless” it was meant to be filled with happiness. 

Happiness that could be captured through the use of education. My family never used education as much as I hope I’m able to. They never really saw the importance, until they no longer had the ability to use it to its full potential. Now that they understand the difference it can make in life, they push me towards capturing things like scholarships or academic opportunities. While dealing with the choking smoke of family addiction, I noticed the difference education could really make. It isn’t about the amount of money that my degree can get me, it’s the difference I can make through the knowledge that will be spread from professionals at an upper level. It’s the difference between living and stewing in struggle compared to living and thriving through challenges. Education is the only chance I have to do something that I enjoy, something that makes me feel like I’m holding my weight in the journey to change. While my dream career isn’t creating the next energy source or creating world peace, it is making even the smallest differences in animal conservation and mental wellbeing of people. I’m not the next world savior, but I am the next veterinarian, animal conservationist, and mental health advocate. I saw what struggle can do to people, and I realized that I can’t make someone choose to be better, but I can show them that there are things worth changing for. My own struggles were drowning; however, the calm nature of animals made me see that there are multiple avenues when it comes to bringing someone one more reason to choose happiness. I want to give one more chance to people like my dad that didn’t have the help they needed when they needed it most. The thing my dad and I bonded on was animals, and I would really enjoy using something we both cared about to create help for the animals and people who held me up in my hardest times, and kept my dad himself before the pain became too much for him to handle. This scholarship will be one of the many that gives me the chance to start this adventure, and I hope that even if this doesn’t pan out to me winning that it gives me the confidence to see that failure is just one more stone to the path of showing my dad that his daughter is making a difference for people just like him. One more stone to showing myself that I’m good enough to make a difference even when I have to thrive through challenges.