August 3rd, 2010

On August 3rd, 2010, I was on summer vacation and I was outside enjoying the day and my grandmother’s neighbor, Larry came by our house.   staying in at this time; However, let us get back to the story; My grandma’s neighbor named Larry as you already know came by wanted to talk to my dad. At the time I didn't know what was going on all I knew was that my dad got in the car to leave and I asked if I could go. You know when your younger you always want to go with your parents.

Anyways he told me “No”

I said “okay”, but now that I think about it my dad was trying to protect me from the devasted news I was about to receive.

So before I tell what happened let me tell you more about what happened before. Okay, so you guys know my dad left, so my mom came out and told me to go inside. So I started walking inside and my mom was leaving; when I going inside, they were gone for hours, it felt like it was a whole day. They were actually making me worried and you know when you're a young child you always want to know what is going on/happening with your parents. Then when your parents don't tell you to get scared because you don’t know what's going on.

I saw Larry's car down the street coming to our house I thought it was my dad but it was my uncle; I guess he had to come over and watch us for a little bit. All I can see is that my uncle has been crying.

I started asking questions like “what happened?”

he replied every time “You will know later.”

I asked him “Why are you crying?”

All he could say was “You will know later.”

After he said that every time I asked him a question, I knew it was something terrible, I started to worry even more because at the time I thought it was something wrong with my cousin because she was going through things at this time. And the thing she was going through was, she lost her first baby and she got pregnant again and she was on bed rest for like 6 months at this time.  But of course that wasn't it; It was something way worse. Let's keep going.

So after my uncle was there for about an hour all you see is like 25 family members come over all depressed; so at the time I thought it was a family reunion cause we have those once in a blue moon and they’re from Detriot, MI; So I was young I’m running around with my cousins. They didn’t even know what was going on at the time. So were outside at like 6-7 PM playing football; so all you see is more and more people showing up and I haven’t seen my parents, so I started to worry even more and so I went inside and wanted to go find my uncle and he was gone too. So I was very scared. What was going on? Then my mom walked in at almost 7:25 PM and all I could do is hug her because I was thinking that they were in trouble at the time but it wasn’t them it was someone else that was very close to me.

The person I lost was my grandmother, how they told all of us was. They had us sit at the table and my mom and dad said we lost someone in the family and the first I thought of was my Cousin by the baby, but she told me somebody who meant the world to me, my grandmother and that hit me so hard all I could think of at the time was the memories that I had with my grandmother, All I can do is cry, I thought the world was against me all I was saying to my mom is why grandma? and my mom said something very powerful,

“Not everybody dies, because she isn't dead in your heart.”

I think about that quote every day. I look up everyone is depressed. but my father you can see in his eye that he is lost but he was like holding his tears back and all I can do is look at him because I knew that he wanted to cry but he wouldn’t cry.

The next day August 4th, 2010, It was very windy outside and I woke up because the night before I couldn't go to sleep because I was thinking about my grandmother but I got to see my dad before he went to work. I walked up to him and hugged him because you can see he hasn’t sleep because his eyes were red and baggy; So I sat down. I asked him,

“Why didn’t you cry yesterday?”

He said, “I did cry, just not in front of you.”

I asked him, “Why?”

He replied, “You don't ever want to cry in front of children because you are going to make it worse because you are the person they look up too.”

I thought that was another lesson I learned because you're the person your kids look up to and if you cry you make them think you won’t ever be there to confront them through things. So I think you should try and not cry in front of children.

August 5th, 2010 My dad was manager so he always worked and he wasn't at work because they moved him to a different store because he wanted to leave and go leave in Michigan and when he told all of the kids we were moving they were upset and my dad was to he started crying when he told us, we were going to move and all I can do was go up there when he was telling us and give him a hug because he was going through a lot and I knew if I hug him, I knew he would be able to get through what he was going through.

August 6th, 2010, it was the day of moving and my grandmother funeral, so my dad invited his friends to move our stuff up to Battle Creek, Michigan; So we can be able to see my grandma get put to rest. It was crazy there was a lot of people and I have never seen these many people ever in my life and they were all family and friends and My family always argued but that day nobody argued everyone was chill and layback and of course depressed. But I was happy my family was getting along but at the same time, I was heartbroken my grandmother was there to see it. She has always tried family reunions and things like that with the family and there would always be a fight and that was hard on her. She was always depressed because she thought she failed this family but she didn’t. She the impacted person in this family and that day I saw her smile from heaven.

Now I live in Battle Creek, Michigan and trying to do good things, my grandmother has always told me

“If you put your mind to it, you can do it.”

And I believed in that my whole life but losing my grandma so young her face fades like a sunset every year I lose more memories and stop thinking about her more and more every year and every year around my birthday I lose her hope she is watching over me and is still believing in me.