My heart is pounding harder and harder each second as I frantically search for my sister. As I hand of my little sister I’m also searching for the phone. Once I found the phone, tears star running in streams down my face as my shaking hands dial 911. “What’s your emergency?” asks the operator. As I clear my throat and try to calm down long enough to tell the operator what’s wrong, “My grandpa is on the floor and not moving.” I replied. That was the beginning of a day I would never forget.

I can remember that day as though it was just yesterday, the day my grandpa passed away. All the different thoughts that raced through my head as the police and then the ambulance arrived made it unbearable. My grandma soon arrived after they did and busted through the door with worry filling her eyes. Frantically racing around, with worry in her eyes I’ve never seen before, she’s asking what happened and what’s going on. As she’s throwing many questions at them, they try to calm her and tell her what’s going on and everything is going to be okay. No one had seen this awful event coming. My grandma and I were both asking why and how and just couldn’t seem to understand. A few moments, which seemed like forever, later they decided that my grandpa was somewhat stable enough for them to rush him to the hospital. Hours later after my grandma had gone to the hospital to find out what had happened and what was going on she came home and gave us the news that no one wanted to hear. “Grandpa isn’t coming home.” She said as her voice shook and hears went in streams down her cheeks.

The one thing that I learned that day was to jump up and act like an adult for those moments I was “in charge” for. I also learned that you should never take any loved one in your life for granted, because you never know when something is going to happen and you’re no longer going to have them in your life. For day and day after the tragic event happened, the whole thing replayed and replayed in my head every moment that I was not kept busy for. Most of all, the hardest thing for me to do was accept the fact that what happened, happened and there wasn’t a thing I could do to change it.

The one thing about that whole day that left a stabbing feeling in my heart was the fact that my grandpa passed away just a few months after my little sister was. Also at the time of that happening my mom was in the hospital. I couldn’t dare think about how bad it was for my mom to come out of some painful surgery to hear even more painful news. For many days after the passing of my grandpa, it was really hard to be home and stay cooped up in a house filled with grief, stress, and mostly crying. It took weeks for me to realize ‘wow this is life’.

The day of the funeral was the hardest thing in my life. As I walked through the funeral place’s doors a very depressing feeling came over me. As I walk closer and closer to the coffin my heart pounds harder and harder. My walking gets slower and slower as I feel the tears rushing from my eyes. Seeing my grandpa and having it hit me like a ton of bricks that he’s not going to be around anymore just killed me inside. That was one day I would never want to repeat.