What Doesn’t Kill You
Ithaca, NY
2025, Junior, Creative Writing
“Lo que no mata, te engorda,” Papá yells at me in Spanish. His voice sounds like sandpaper after all those years breathing salt air. He’s bent over, pulling another plastic bag from the sand. Those hands – heck, the same hands that taught me to bait hooks – they’re fighting a whole different war now. This is where my two worlds smash together, right here on this beach. The ocean looks beautiful. Deceptively so. We both know what’s floating out there.
Used to hate when he made me help with trash duty. “¿Por qué, Papá?” I’d whine, sweat pouring down my face in the brutal sun. “More just washes up tomorrow anyway.”
That smile of his. Quiet. Knowing. Makes his eyes crinkle up. Took me years to understand. Now I stuff another piece of plastic in my bag – this one’s sharp, brittle – and his words hit me right in the gut: Lo que no mata, te engorda. What doesn’t kill you weighs you down. I run my fingers along the jagged edges. Someone’s old grocery bag maybe. Someone’s lunch container. Now it’s gonna choke the same water that feeds us.
This beach? It’s not just sand and surf to me. It’s everything. Where I learned to read water like it was my diary. Spot a rip current before it yanks some tourist away from their family. My older brother Lucas and I would spend whole afternoons in that skiff. He’d show me how to cast past where the light breaks on the Intracoastal.
“Patience,” he’d whisper. Could barely hear him over the water slapping our boat. “Fish can feel when you’re antsy. Goes right down the line.”
Sounded like bull then. But I’d still hold my breath. Feel that weird connection between my hands and whatever was swimming around down there.
Five years later, we still come back empty-handed sometimes. And Papá still cracks the same darn joke: “No hay pescado hoy? Pues supongo que cenaremos pozole.”
No fish today? Guess we’re eating soup for dinner.
Makes me laugh every time. Salt’s crusty on my skin, but some things you don’t grow out of.
Hurricane season changes everything. All that easy laughter? Gone. Everyone turns into these grim, efficient machines. We tie down the skiff like it’s made of gold. Which, honestly, it might as well be. Papá and I move together like dancers now. Years of practice. Stack sandbags that get heavier every season – or maybe we’re just getting older.
After last year’s big storm, I caught Papá at the window. Just standing there watching the palms bend in ways that looked impossible. Lightning lit up his face every few seconds. Made him look ancient. I grabbed his hand. Felt every callus, every scar from decades of work.
“Va a estar bien,” I said.
Both of us knew I was lying.
After storms, we walk the beach like pilgrims. The shoreline’s always different. Sandbars move. Dunes disappear. Landmarks you’ve known your whole life – gone. But Papá? He’s got this internal GPS that always points home. Never fails.
We step over debris. Count the houses lost. And somehow he still finds space for his old jokes. Same words that make us crack up on fishing trips. But his voice is different now. Thinner. Tired in a way that scares me. Still stands tall though. Like those mangroves that refuse to die. Roots just dig deeper when the water rises.
Abuelita used to cup my face in her paper-thin hands. Tell me stories about my great-grandparents. How they walked for weeks in blazing heat. Carried nothing but hope across borders you could see and others you couldn’t.
“We didn’t worry about being comfortable,” she’d say. Her accent got thicker when she remembered. “Staying alive was plenty.”
They saw land as something to survive. This brutal teacher that demanded respect through pain. Couldn’t think about what might happen later. When the ocean started taking back what we thought belonged to us.
Now we’re paying for it. See it everywhere. Shoreline creeping inland. Dead coral washing up white as bones. Fish showing up in all the wrong places – or not showing up at all.
The deal we had with the earth? Someone rewrote the contract. We’re still figuring out what the heck we signed.
Lo que no mata, te engorda. Feel the weight of it as I wade in. Water climbs up my legs. I dip Lucás’s old net – gave it to me when I turned thirteen – and watch for silver flashes in the seagrass.
One perfect moment. Just me. The line in my hands. Blue stretching forever toward tomorrow. Almost like I can feel the ocean’s pulse against my skin. Familiar as my own heartbeat.
That’s where I find hope. In that connection. Even with everything falling apart.
Reflection
Reflection
Writing this piece brought me back to when I was probably eight years old. My abuela had this saying, "Lo que no mata, te engorda." What doesn't kill you makes you fat. She'd say it about my tío's relationships, grades in school, and pretty much about everything . Not exactly the typical motivational poster, but probably more true. I tried making a short film about this once. It looked horrible. All these pretty shots of waves and sunset garbage that were meaningless. Writing it felt better. Messier. Like I could actually think about it instead of just looking through a distorting lens. Dad definitely wasn't thinking about the environment when he taught me to fish. He just liked being out there. But it all connects - the patience, the waiting, the way the ocean takes everything you give it and doesn't return much. I don't know what anyone's supposed to do with this. I'm still figuring it out. Maybe that's all any of us can do - stand in the water and just go numb.