As I stand over the water that now separates me from one of the only people I’ve loved in my family, I see the pond ripple. ‘If I had just been there.’, I thought. I turned around and start towards my family waiting by the pavilion. “Thank you all for being here,” my aunt Susan says. “,it’s been a hard time. I know he would've wanted you guys to come.” She wipes a tear from her eye and sniffs, trying to hold back more tears. I didn’t cry once, not even when I found out that he had passed. When he did pass away, my mother and father came downstairs to tell me that they were going to my aunt and uncle's house to see him. “Can I come?”, I asked, eager to see my uncle one last time. “No, I’m sorry Amanda. It’s no place for you to see him like this.” I didn’t entirely understand what that meant at the time, but I do now. It’s hard to know someone you love is in pain, but it’s even harder to know there is nothing you could of done about it.

My uncle Perry was a very caring man, who was very full of life. We used to go to his and my aunt Susan's home all the time for holidays with my Nana, Grandad, and my cousins. One thing he used to do was play football with my cousins and I. We would all have a great time running around on the wet grass, and then swing on his hammock while trying now to flip over and brain ourselves on the concrete below. I have no idea why he thought that was a good idea, but he did it anyways! We would play in his backyard and watch for the garden area as he grilled hamburgers and hotdogs while drinking beers with my dad and my older cousins Dan and Brian. Inside the house, my aunt would be preparing the side dishes with my mom, Nana, and Janesse, my cousin. On the TV, sports would play while my second cousin Dylan laid on the tan, worn couch, careful not to lay his feet on the glass table. We would wander through the one-story home and play a few games on my Uncles purple Gamecube in the guest bedroom. In the closet, my uncle kept his surveillance TVs, monitoring the outside of their home. Their dog Sam ran around the perimeter of the house with my Nana and Grandad’s dog named Precious, sometimes even my old dog, Daisy. Today, the only remaining of that trio is Precious.

I cannot remember the exact day when I found out the worst news I would ever hear from that moment on. My uncle had been diagnosed with brain cancer. I can’t help but think this is the end, that this is the last time we will be with him. I was too young to understand that there are, in fact, many hopeful treatments to cancer and that diagnosis did not mean giving up hope. He wasn’t terminal, and there was so much we could do. My parents and I drove to go see him through the dry, humid atmosphere outside. The gut feeling in my chest that nothing will be the same ever again sat heavy in me. Once we got there, we all talked about his condition and addressed the possibilities. I asked my mom about that conversation we had the other day when we were talking about it again. “Mom, we never got to say goodbye to him.” “Amanda, we said goodbye to him when we found out. We knew he was never going to be the same again.” After a few months, my uncle had started to get worse. Having to be fed now daily by my aunt, and lifted out of a chair with a belt that sat around his waist. It was painful to see him like that, and when I did it started making me feel powerless. All I could do was smile, say hi, and act like everything was okay when it wasn’t. When we found out that the tumor had become inoperable, my aunt had started looking for a Hospice nurse. They moved a bed into the dining and living area so that my aunt could keep a close eye on him, and make sure he was comfortable.

In june, it was a hot day and I was downstairs when my parents told me they were going to go see him one last time. I asked if I could go, but they said no. “It’s no place for you to see him like this.” I went out later that day, when they were still out, to my neighbor Autumn’s house to swim when I got a call on my cellphone. “Hey, it’s dad. Uncle Perry has passed away. He didn’t die in any pain, he was unconscious when he passed. We’re coming home.” The call ended. I went back over to my friends in the pool as they asked me who it was. “My uncle just passed away.” Autumn hugged me and I went home. What I carry, even though it has been 4 years since his passing, is grief. Grief mostly from not being able to accept I wasn’t there to be with him, to even just hold his hand in the end. The thing I know now though, that even if I have not moved on, I am ready to start.