“She’ll be fine,” I said.

“What if she isn’t?” Marissa asked.

“All we have to do is hope for the best. We can’t do much else,” I stated.

“I know.” Marissa said. “ I really hope she’s okay.”

“So do I Marissa. So do I,” I said with a worried tone.

I was almost thirteen years old with millions of thoughts going through my head.

There were so many people in my Aunt Jerri’s house. It seemed as if our neighborhood was almost abandoned. Every house was quiet except for ours. The cries and sobs of everyone else was filling my ears.

My cousins Mariah(14), Marissa(almost 13), Makalah(11), Alexi(8), Roman(7), and Izzy(5) were there with me. My mom, Great Aunt Jerri(grandma’s sister), and Aunt Jerri’s daughter Tammy were there with me also.

I didn’t know how badly I’d need them that Saturday morning.

Rewind to the day before. Friday. I had to stay over at my Aunt Jerri’s house for the entire day after we got home from school. She had to watch all of her six grandkids... plus me. We did what any kid does: eat, play, and watch TV. I felt like nothing in the world could ever ruin that day. It was about perfect. The only thing that ruined it for me was a thought running through my mind constantly.

My grandma was in the hospital. All I could think of at that moment was,”I’m not even going to get to see her. She is in a terrible condition. Mom won’t let me come with her and I don’t ever see my mom anymore. She’s always at the hospital. I want to go.” I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand the fact that she was in there. Trapped. It broke my heart.

Later that evening it was kind of a continuous run of movies and TV shows. All of us sat downstairs in the darkness of the night pulling all of the blankets off of the beds and getting every pillow in the whole house. We made a gigantic bed for all seven of us to lay on and watch kiddy shows. Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, and Cartoon Network were played for several hours.

Every adult in the house went up to see my grandma. We stayed up until we were walking like zombies from the tiredness. The younger ones went to bed earlier. They went off to dream... they didn’t have a worry in the world. We all felt so drained from the long day we had at school. Barely keeping our eyes open, we headed off to bed, grabbed the blankets,and prayed and hoped for the best. We were emotional wrecks.

We were all woken up really early on a Saturday morning and told to go into the living room for a family meeting.

Mariah, Marissa, Makalah, Alexi, and myself stumbled out of bed still trying to comprehend what was happening. We walked down the stairs with our eyes open... fully awake. Marissa started to cry. I heard her sobs. I looked up and saw her and my mom looking at me. I cried. Soon everyone in that house was crying their eyes out. No one even said anything. We just knew. So this is what the news was? The reason we were woken up from our peaceful dreams. This was the worst day of my entire life. I could hardly breathe because the crying hadn’t stopped.She was gone. My grandma wasn’t with us anymore and I wasn’t going to see her again.

After the dramatic morning, my mom, my uncle, my cousin Nick, and I went out for breakfast. We all had to stay strong. That’s what my grandma would have wanted. She wouldn’t want us to be sad and emotional. She wanted people to be happy. To remember all of the good things about her. I just sat there quietly eating. I had ten million thoughts and they kept growing. It seemed to me as if we were in that restaurant forever. I just wanted to be alone. But more importantly, I wanted to be with my grandma more than anything.

I have learned a lot of things from this experience. I’ve learned that it is okay to cry. When you just feel like giving up there’s always something that will bring you back up. And when you surround yourself with people who love you, you’ll get a lot farther. I’ve also learned that people leave every day and you just have to stay strong because it eventually gets better.

I still miss my grandma every day and there isn’t a time where I don’t think about her. She was my entire world. We would do so much together. I would go over to her house and bake cakes and she’d teach me how to cook and how to clean. We’d walk to nearby stores and go shopping for school clothes, food, and she always had to have her cigarettes. I’d watch The Green Mile countless times with her and when it came to the late hours in the night, we would lay on her bed and talk until either one of us got tired. I could talk to her about anything. I could talk to her forever. She had the most gorgeous voice and she always had the best advice. She knew what was she was talking about.

Let me tell you this; everyone will eventually go someday but it might be when you least expect it. So, always tell your family and friends you love them. You never know when it’s their time to go.


Ethel Louise. I love you. See you soon.