I was six. Almost everyday, I would play in my backyard on our giant wooden swingset with my siblings. We would swing like monkeys from the monkey bars and try to not touch the ground because it was considered “lava”- something all kids should experience during the short years of their childhood. The crisp smell of the October air with the scent of burning leaves and wood smoke was swirling throughout the air. This one October day in particular, we played for hours. It was the perfect carefree day, until we went inside our house after playing and were told the news that nobody ever wants to hear- our aunt was going to die from cancer that night.

My aunt had been battling breast cancer for years. When someone goes through such a horrible illness like cancer, all you want to do is help and be there for them every step of the way.  She went through multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation but as the days went on, things just got worse. The pain she went through was incomprehensible and unfortunately, I saw the immense amount of pain when I looked into her big brown eyes, she was clearly suffering.  I couldn’t imagine going through what she went through everyday for years. This battle was a struggle and she didn’t give up until October 7th where she couldn’t hold on any longer.

  At around 5:50 p.m on Saturday October 7th, my mom got a call from my uncle, a call that nobody ever wants to receive. He started out talking slowly and asked if my mom was sitting down. He said, “Susie isn’t going to make it”- my aunt was going to die that night from breast cancer. The phone was on speaker because we were expecting that call for a while and weren’t expecting good news. When he said those six words, my heart dropped and goosebumps ran up and down my arms. I didn’t know just what to do at that point, so I just stood there, clueless of what to do. The ear-piercing cry of my mom is something that I never want to hear again, she was going to lose one of her sisters’. My mom dropped her phone instantly and my three siblings and I piled into the car as soon as possible to try and make it to see her last few breaths. We knew this was going to happen for a while, but we didn’t know it was going to happen that night.

The drive seemed like days before we got to the hospital, maybe even years. We lived about forty minutes from the hospital that was caring for her. The car was silent, nobody was talking, and there was no music on, you could hear a pin drop. I looked out the window to the dark woods that lined the road and just thought. Thoughts started coming to my mind but the one thought that bothered me the most was, “How was I going to live without my favorite aunt?”

My aunt and I had the best relationship, even though I was only six. She had the same interests as me and we always had so much fun together. My mom referred to me as “Little Susie” because I was her mini me. I remember having her take my favorite park next to Lake Michigan and having her push me on my favorite green swing because I just couldn’t pump my legs yet. Everytime I went down to her house, we would sit on the big white couch on her front porch and sit patiently for the ice cream truck. We would always listened closely to try and hear the jingle of the truck. She always asked, “What kind do you want today?” I always asked for the same thing and looked forward to the sticky and creamy Spongebob icecream. I loved having those memories with her and seeing her almost everyday is something I should have appreciated just a bit more.

I was resting my head on the window because of the long drive and I felt like I was going to fall asleep. Just then, I looked out the window and saw the bright red sign “Emergency” and unfortunately, I knew we were there. I was dreading that moment but I knew that this may be the last time I would ever see her and didn’t know how much time I had left with her.

My mom parked the car in the parking garage and my siblings and I immediately ran out of the car and looked for the nearest door to go into the hospital. We checked in at the front office, got visitors passes with our names on it, and were assigned to room number 707. As we tried to find our way there, we took a couple wrong turns and ended up getting lost. The hospital was like a corn maze, it was so big you never knew where to turn. Luckily, after about  ten minutes of confusion, we found the room 707 and it was finally time to see her.

I was hesitant to go into the room and I didn’t know if I was prepared for what I was about to see. Eventually, I walked in, and saw all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandma and grandpa, it seemed like a family reunion. I was so short because I was only six but eventually got to see my aunt on the bed. Dozens of long wires and tubes were hooked up to her nose and in her arms. Her face was as pale as a ghost and her eyes were completely shut even though she was still awake. She had purple and blue bags under her tiny eyes and she appeared as thin as a rail, not what I remembered her as. The room was silent besides the beeping from the machines and the sniffles from tears from my family members. I stood at her bedside and placed my hand onto her hand just as the doctors walked in. The stern look on their faces made me worried and I knew that the next couple of minutes weren’t going to be good. Once all of the doctors were in the room, they shut the door as quietly as possible so that my aunt was not disturbed.

Suddenly, the beeping sound of the machines started moving slower and slower one by one. Tears started rolling down my face and I looked up to my mom seeing that her mascara was dripping down the sides of her checks. My grandma grabbed my hand and the rest of the people in the room held hands- we started praying a Hail Mary. We knew praying was the one thing that could not only help us during this difficult time, but also my aunt. The beeping of the machines started getting slower and slower and all of the sudden, the beeping stopped and the monitor continued in a straight bright green line. My heart dropped and all of my family members faces drew completely blank. Cancer beat her, she was gone, and sadly we had to “say goodbye.”