It was a clear cold day in March, there was still snow on the ground. The wind was whipping around all of us, slipping in between the cracks of our clothing making me shake like the end of a rattle snake tail when they are getting ready to strike. The minister said some prayers at the funeral house and then we got in the car, first in line, to go to the cemetery where the burial would take place. My family gathered at the spot, right above my uncle so they could be close again. Then minister said more words; I wasn’t paying attention I was staring at the smooth brown shining coffin in the afternoon sunlight. He finished what he was saying and said,
“For those who want to you can put flowers on the casket before we lower into the ground.”
My family pulled some flowers from the heart flower bouquet that was off to the side. We put them on the casket. The ground keepers that were on the sidelines the whole time, I didn’t even notice started to put the casket into the ground. It was kind of hard for them to put the casket into the ground and one of my family members said behind me,
“Gotta be stubborn all the way don’t you?”
I hmmmed at that and watched them lower the casket all the way in the ground and started putting the dirt on top of the brown casket. It was over now; the end of it hit me like a sack of cinder blocks. I blinked back the tears that threated to fall again. The tears were hot, when you burn your hand on the top of the stove accidently because you forgot it was still hot. I couldn’t keep them at bay. The tears burned their way down my cheeks leaving distinct tracks. I felt that was the only warm part of me because my heart was still frozen shards sitting in my stomach, waiting to be picked up by me when I was ready. When I was crying I thought how can I have more tears? I felt like I should’ve been out but your never out of tears, your body will always make more even though you don’t want it to. We went to the same bar/restaurant that we went after my uncles’ funeral and it all felt fake. It didn’t seem that our family just buried one of our family members. I didn’t talk to anyone there because it seemed like all the adults just went to the bar and stayed there and ate too.
We were living with my grand ma for a couple of months before we learned that my uncle had lung cancer, first one to go. He didn’t last long when we learned about it. It was terrifying that finally knowing that someone can die. Death was something that seems impossible until it happens, so it was a slap in the face because it was happening to our own family, something that seemed impossible to tear apart but cancer did it. Like millions before cancer tore out family apart by letting us know that we are not invincible to death, we are always close to its grasp. His death brought me to reality, like coming up from murky water. When I came up from under the murky lake water to breathe again the air was cold and sharp on my face from being under the warm water and my eyes blurry from the lake water, so I wiped at them to see again. It made me star appreciate my family that wad around, appreciating that my uncle brought my siblings and I up north to spend time with us and my aunt letting us use her pool and spending time with my younger cousins because it was all going to change again very soon ,little did I know.

When we lived in Pontiac, my mom, dad, older brother Ronald, older sister Virginia and me, I always felt that we had a barrier between us and the rest of the family because of where we lived. So when we moved out of Pontiac into my grandma’s house because we lost our house it was like everyone wanted us to do things for them now. I mean we never mind helping them, it just felt like before in Pontiac that we weren’t good enough for them to call us. But it might our fault too, by not calling them as much as we should have but we were children never really understanding the importance of a family. We just mostly relied on our mom and dad because they were the easiest to get to. Then we were at my grandma’s house and suddenly people needed help or to go up north with them, it was an odd concept, spending time with other people than our mom or dad but we were. We lived with my grandma for almost a year before she and the rest of my family helped us move to a house that was 10 minutes from everyone else in the family. My mom , sister brother and I were there about a month with us living in it, sorting through everything trying to get everything in its rightful place in the house to make it a new home for us. I my sister and brother were in school at this time so it was hard for us to do it but we were trying so our mom could just relax when she got home from her hated job at Burger King.
The night before it happened I was sleeping with my mom because I was getting a new bed frame. The one I had was shaky and rickety so it freaked me out when I climbed up in it so I was getting a new one from one of my family members so I slept with my mom and I could comfortably because she had a queen size bed. Before I went to bed that night, I felt this overwhelming sense of desolation come over me. I felt like there was a heavy weight on my chest that was slaughtering the breath out of me. Someone had grabbed my lungs and squeezing them so they felt like they were deflated balloons. Then someone had grabbed my intestines and twisted them so they looked like the twisty tie that wraps around the plastic bag that holds the bread in. The very thing I always had trouble with that frustrated me when I was younger because I couldn’t find the right way to twist it to open. From those two feelings I thought I was getting the flu because I didn’t think that I could eat without throwing up. I felt that throughout the night and didn’t eat anymore more than two bites of my dinner because I was testing myself and I couldn’t eat more than that.
After my homework was done I got ready for bed and laid down. As I laid down I remembering looking at the moon. I couldn’t tell you what phase it was but it was unnaturally bright to me that night. The moon light lit up everything in the bedroom. I stared at it for a few minutes before I shut my eyes and fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later to TV because my mom was home because she worked nights at Bugker King so she watched TV when she got home before she went to sleep. She was eating plain chips when I opened my eyes and looked at her. I just stared at her in the glow from the TV before I moved the chip bag onto her straight legs instead of the chips sitting beside her. She looked at me and didn’t say anything to me and I just snuggled up to her left hip and fell back asleep. I woke up a few hours later to my sister Virginia.
“MaryEllen, time to get up.”
“No, I have a headache.”
“Okay.”
When Virginia woke me up it was surprising because usually I wake her up and my brother too but it was good for her I thought. She loves sleep so it’s really hard for her to get up in the morning. She’s just like my mom in that aspect. I was half listening to my sister and brother gets ready for high school and leave. The door slammed shut with a medium sound. Not too loud as you would shut it with all your strength but not taking your time and shut the door soft either. I looked outside and saw that it was cloudy and rainy outside. I shivered thinking just about the outside and glad that I didn’t go. I snuggled up to my mom again and fell back asleep until I woke up to go to the bathroom. My mom was watching TV and doing schedules before she went to work.
“Go get me coffee MaryEllen.”
“Okay.”
I got out of bed and got her coffee with milk in it until turned a light brown in her giant Christmas bear mug. It was close to noon when looked at the clock in the kitchen, my mom had to go to work again in a couple of hours. I sat by her again watching TV with her, still feeling nervous and the overwhelming desolation from the night before. I remember thinking that the wrongness I felt was something happening at work. That someone at work had quit or the people she was going to work with were stupid and irritating tonight. We watched TV for a few minutes after that thought processed finished and that’s when it happened. My mom started choking and at I thought she was coughing at first because she was a smoker then I thought she was playing around but quickly dismissed the thought when she didn’t respond to me.
“MOM?!?!” I asked/yelled at her feeling terrified.
I kept yelling at her for a few seconds and shaking her to see if she responded to me and when she didn’t I stated doing chest compressions thinking I could bring her back. I learned chest compressions in the 7th grade but not professionally but thought it would still. I breathed into her mouth then went back to doing the chest compressions and it wasn't working. I was freaking and started crying by this point and screaming,
“MOM!!!” trying to bring her back so then the only thing I could think of was to call my dad. I called him and the conversation went like this,
“Dad, moms not breathing!”
“What?!”
I hung up on him and tried to do CPR again and then called my grandma. I don’t remember the conversation with her but I know she was there before I knew it and had me call 911. I felt so stupid because I remember thinking, why didn't I call 911 in the first place? I dialed and then gave the phone to my grandma and she told them the address while she started doing CPR on my mom. I stood half in and out of the glass screen at the Saline house and waited for the ambulance to come and it felt like forever but they did come and two medics quickly jumped out of the ambulance with a black bag in their hand and into the house. It felt weird in the time the medics were at the house, slow and fast moving at the same time. Two other medics brought out the stretcher for my mom to be brought out to the ambulance. They brought the stretcher into the house and brought her out of her room and onto the stretcher after they gave her a shot of a clear liquid into her arm. They backed out quickly after they gave her the shot and told my grandma where they were taking her and then my dad showed up after they just took her to the hospital. It was weird because I saw the medics leave and then my dad was at the house and then we were at driving to POH. On the way there I remember hoping that the doctors at the hospital brought her back and she would get better and she would get to come home to us. But I knew I was wrong. When we got to POH they took us to a little room where they sat us down and told us the news and the little hope I had sunk down in my stomach and made the twisty tie tighter again. The male nurse brought us to her and I sat down by her right arm and grabbed her hand. It was already ice cold. It felt like I was holding an ice cube. I still held it though. It was also very rigid and stiff I couldn't thread my fingers through hers like I wanted to.
The rest of my family was called and trickled in. My uncle Rick was told to pick up my brother and sister from the high school and it felt like forever before they showed up. They were told at the hospital instead of at school. They broke down when they walked into the room. Before they got there though I heard my family talk about how it was good I was there to make the call instead of my sister and brother finding her dead. As I heard that I thought, what good did it do if she’s dead? I didn't do anything, I failed her by not calling 911 right away even though that’s the first thing they teach you when your little and something bad happened. I didn't do it and I failed her I thought. I mulled over that statement a bit because it struck me hard because I felt that I could have saved her and I didn't because I freaked out and didn't think of 911 first. I stopped listening after that because I felt stupid because I didn't save her.
Since I was still holding my mom’s hand, my hand felt like ice but I didn't let go. I looked around and saw all our family around and the sad faces they had on. There was tear tracks on their cheeks but no one was actively crying anymore. We were all quite now, biding our time waiting for the nurse or a doctor to come tell us that it’s time to go. We sat until a male nurse told us that it was time to go. Some of us I think started crying fresh tears and said goodbye. I was numb, I couldn't think properly anymore. I was a robot on autopilot. I kissed her hand and said goodbye to her. I walked out to of the little room with everyone else and the hallway we went out to was bright. It was when you turn the light on in the morning to see where you were going, having to squint my eyes until they adjusted which was quickly. I told someone I was going to the bathroom. When I came out my Aunt Ellen was standing outside the bathroom and hugged me and to say goodbye to me. I meet up with my grandma, dad, and my brother and sister. WE walked to my grandmas car and it was cold rainy. The weather fit my mood. We got in the car and I don’t remember what happened after that, my brainy a foggy mess, running on autopilot. It’s all a mess of days strung together with people offering their condolences and missing school to go to the funeral home to make decisions for my mom’s funeral.
This made me think of all the people that have lost people before me and they had to make these exhausting decisions too. I thought back to when I was tired after school or a day of playing in the yard and this is what tired actually is. Where you brain isn't making full thoughts, your body on autopilot just moving by instinct anymore and your body feel like it’s full of cement and that makes you move like molasses in the ice cold freezing temperatures of winter. Just like my mom’s hand, ice cold and stiff, frozen in time. I only remember bits and pieces of days from there on and even with her funeral. I remember kissing her forehead at parts in the funeral home and it being her still being cold and cold inside.  The coldness fit what I felt inside though. My heart was warm, soft, open an debating then she was taken away and my hearts quickly turned into ice and shattered into a million shards and had no way of fixing it. The days went quickly and then it was her funeral day. It was a clear cold day in March, there was still snow on the ground.
After her funeral it was a mass of blurred together days and moving out of our Saline house to my Uncle Jim’s House and Aunt Cheryl’s house. We got settled pretty quickly and went on. The loss on my uncle made me realize to cherish every moment I had with my family because we are always in deaths clutches waiting for it to grab us or someone we care about and snatched them away from us. Then the loss of my mother broke me down and made me put myself back together again, to be stronger, more thoughtful of life and to follow my dreams. So I won’t be stuck in a pace where I don’t want to be. So I thank her for making me work hard today and for the rest of my life so I can have the life she would have wanted me to have. Also to thank my uncle for waking me up and out of being naive about death, to cherish my family and friends, to make all the good memories I can. So when they do go I can remember them with a smile and not a frown. I didn't want these events to happen but they did and these events helped me be the person I am today and will continue helping me throughout the rest of my life.