“ Mami whats going on why are you so quiet and why do you look sad”

My mom looked at me with tears dripping down her face.
“Here someone wants to talk to you it’s an emergency”

It was a hot, sunny, July day in 2015, me and my 2 close friends had just came back from hoopin at the rec center. I walked in the house and seen that my mom was waiting for me and everything was very silent.

…”Hello?’ I said
“Hi baby it”s Latoya, You might want to sit down if you’re not already sitting”
“TOYA whats wrong?” I asked worriedly.
“Nena….C.J DIED in a horrible dirt bike accident”

alot of crying and yelling was going on while we were on the phone. I didn’t know what to say. All of a sudden I BURSTED into tears.

I began to scram at the world “WHY MY BEST FRIEND, WHY MY BIG BROTHER!!!”
All i could do was drop to the floor and cry my eyes out. My godmother told me to pack a bag because i will be staying with her for 2 weeks. I ran into my room so fast and packed my stuff.

She was on the phone with my mom and told her that she’ll be there in a half an hour. When she got to the house all she did was say sorry and hold me to try and calm me down.

The whole ride from Rochester to Florida was very quiet because we didn’t really talked until we got to resting stops to get something to eat.

At McDonald’s she asked me “how are you holding up?”  I told her “ I’m trying very hard to be strong just for C.J” When we finished eating we ordered more food for on the go so she wouldn’t have to keep stopping for food.
When we got back to Florida, everyone was very quiet and depressed. Then my godmother told me, I could keep a scrapbook that C.J  and I made, I began to look through it and so many memories just flashed through my mind Like when we made pancakes and we decided to flip them and one hit him in the face and i took a picture of him, I began to cry again.

Around July 17th, at the funeral we all wore Blue because it was his favorite color. Before they closed his casket I put a picture of us 2 hugging and laughing. The best memory we had before i lost my favorite god brother. We lit candles for him and everyone said a few words about him.

When it was my turn to go up i said things that put a smile on everyone’s face like “ i remember the day the both of us got into a fight over a t.v show that i was watching and he turned the t.v off so we could ride bikes and get some fresh air, I got mad and shot a pillow at him and pulled his hair and he picked me up and began to tickle me until i was almost in tears.”. After they closed his casket I walked up to it again and I kissed it and said “ I LOVE U C.J SO MUCH”
        

After the funeral I was dropped off to the airport and I said my goodbye’s, got on the plain-went back home to my family and showed them the scrapbook we made over the years we   had together and it made my mother cry because she seen how happy we were growing up. Now  ever since that tragic day my whole life has changed and every time i think of C.J all i can see and hear is the both  of us having fun and laughing at each other when we used to prank each other.Then i begin to look through our scrapbook and i laugh because i know if he was by my side as i look through it he would laugh right along with me and tell me “eww you look silly in this picture ”like he always did when we looked through it together.