My fear of losing my grandparents started at a very young age. The thought of them not making it to meet my children, my wedding day, or even my high school graduation made me feel distressed. I always expected that the day that I'd lose one of them would be a dark, rainy day. Little did I know, the April sun would be shining, the air would contain a spring-like scent, and there would be no spring showers.

I will never forget the day that my beautiful Grandma H. died.

The day started out like any other Wednesday. I woke up, went to school, sat through my sophomore classes, and did some school work. Nothing was out of the ordinary, until the last hour of the day. Our secretary came to my Spanish class and brought me a note saying that my dad had called the high school office. The note said, “Ride the bus home to the farm and call dad after school.” The Farm refers to my grandparents’ farm, the home where we have gathered for my entire life. On Wednesdays, my brother Blake and I usually stayed after school to attend religion class at church so I wondered why there was a sudden change in plans. At the end of class, I hurried to my locker to call him while I packed my algebra homework into my backpack. He answered after the first ring and I asked, “What’s going on?”

“Grandma’s gone," he said.

I didn’t understand the meaning of those words at first, but they are words I will never forget. I asked, "What do you mean ‘gone'?” I started to panic. Did she wander off into the woods and become lost? Did he mean that her Alzheimer's had gotten the better of her? That she could no longer communicate at all, as the disease had previously disabled her sisters? What did “gone” mean? Was she gone forever? I feared his response.

“She’s gone... dead. Okay? My mom is dead.”

Instantly, tears blinded my eyesight and the hallways spun around me. I didn’t want to believe those words and I couldn’t make myself  realize the truth. I ran to my best friend's locker for a much needed hug and briefly explained what I had just learned. It was the longest bus ride I had ever experienced. I tried my hardest to hold myself together on the ride home, because I wasn’t sure if my dad had informed Blake. It felt like my entire world was crashing down. I wished I could take a nap and wake up from that awful dream.

As the bus pulled into the dirt driveway, I could see The Farm. The newly-shingled white house next to the recently re-sided white garage along with the small shed, the barn, the quonset, the grainery, the schoolhouse, and the unmistakable silo which had two tall trees growing out of the top of it. The bright April sun shone down on the large, green front yard, which was once a garden and contained endless rows of green beans decades ago, comforted me as I started to walk towards the house. Now a flagpole stood in the middle of the yard, flying Grandpa’s favorite colors, and fluttered in the light breeze. Off to the right side of the house, an old, rusty playground hid in the trees behind the new wooden playground. An old red fire hydrant glistened from the warm April sun in the small tomato garden in front of the garage. The hydrant always seemed strange to me but I never asked about it. Down the hill behind the house is where the family’s favorite tree grows; “The Tree of Life,” as my aunts like to put it. This tree symbolized grandma's everlasting love shared to the growing family that she and grandpa built the foundation for. As the family grew, so did the tree.

All the buildings were as they should have been, but the ambulance parked by the door of the house seemed out of place next to familiar vehicles. As we left the bus and rushed towards the house, my dad met Blake and me halfway down the driveway. He embraced us into his arms, and tears flowed from all of our eyes. We entered the crowded house and received endless hugs from aunts and uncles. We were informed  that grandma was resting peacefully on the bathroom floor, where she took her last breath a few hours before. All family members were taking turns saying their final goodbyes.

My turn came so I made my way to the bathroom. My heart sank at the sight of my grandma. I would have started crying, but it was then when I realized that I hadn't stopped crying since the phone call with my dad after school. Indeed she was resting peacefully. She no longer had to struggle with the frustration of not knowing who she was talking to. The Alzheimer’s which had robbed her of her memory could no longer hurt her. Someone had placed a pillow under her head and a blanket over her still body, making it look as if she was taking a nap on the bathroom floor. I took her hand in mine and cried. I remember expecting her hands to be ice cold, but surprisingly they still felt partially warm. I told her how much I loved her and how much I would miss her. Smiling down from heaven, she heard me.

I always thought my grandma was the most beautiful woman ever. She had plenty of wrinkles and her hair was as white as snow, but that's what made her beautiful. The wrinkles meant she smiled and laughed throughout her life. Her smile was something I could never forget. She had her different smiles for different situations. Her “I love you” smile was my favorite, but her "you little s***" smile when I was in trouble was a good one too. Before her illness, we would bake cookies and play cards together while drinking tea. Toward the end of her life, I would trim and polish her long, sharp fingernails on rainy days spent at the farm. I also made it my job to pluck the white hairs from above the corners of her lips and trim her eyebrows as well. It never seemed to bother her. She knew I was keeping her beautiful.

I hated how unexpectedly her death had come. Although I told her I loved her every time I left her, there were so many more things I would have liked to say. I wanted her to know the impact she had made in my life. She instilled in me the value that family is everything. She was the perfect role model showing me how families stay strong together; similar to the way tree branches stay strong through a storm. The next few days felt like Hell.
With as much pain as I was feeling, I could only imagine what my grandpa was feeling. He'd just lost his best friend and his wife of over 60 years. But I hadn't lost him yet, and I was so thankful for that. I started to wonder when Grandpa’s time would come, but I quickly tried to put that thought out of my mind.

People always say that you don't realize what you have until you lose it. I could never truly relate to that saying until this moment in my life. Sitting at the farm, I looked back at the years growing up with a grandma like her. She taught me how to play solitaire and how to make the best gravy. She taught me that sometimes it's okay to eat plain vanilla ice cream four times a day. She taught me exactly how much love to put into chocolate chip cookies. Most importantly, she taught me how much of an influence grandparents have on their grandchildren. She taught me about unconditional love.