S̴a̴y̴i̴n̴g̴ ̴G̴o̴o̴d̴b̴y̴e̴

I walked under the dark, mysterious night sky. The moon awoke from its nap, meanwhile, the Sun was settling down from a wretched day. I walked into a building not only to find myself my mother and aunt but fear in their eyes and despair in their spirit.

 As my sister and I sat down to talk, I heard these words come out of my mother's mouth…“Something has happened,” she said, only this time her eyes were yelling with fear. I assumed the worst, “Did…did…she...die?” I stuttered. The words echoed through my head again and again.

When I assume the worst, it’s always wrong, however, I had a peculiar feeling about this one.

There’s something you must know before I may continue. My grandma had recently gotten sick, and so I’ve been told time after time, she was getting better. The doctors had recently come up with a new, improved plan. So all of this took us by surprise.

My mom slowly and carefully responded to my question, but I didn’t even have to listen to her talk to know what was happening. The only thing I had to do was look deeply into her eyes. They reminded me of a flood, overflowing; as floods would destroy homes, this flood would destroy my heart.

I could hear my sister yelling in pain. I yelled: “NOOO” with a vibration in my voice that I had never experienced in my short years alive. Then, I sat all alone on the couch, frozen. I cried, only pulling my snot that tried to cry down my face, tears falling out of my eyes since my eyes weren’t able to resist all the water building up, and finally my throat, my soar, soar throat. I wept and wept, but the most ironic thing was, I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t understand what was happening. I knew but I just couldn’t understand. To put it more easily, it is like when you have a dream and you wake up and you’re not sure if was all real or fake, you know what happened, you just don’t understand if it was fictional or not.

I stared at a candle. The fire danced around with the soft breeze and it brought me some type of warmth.

The pain was so fresh in my heart. I was afraid. It’s like if you have a wound, it is painful in the beginning, but slowly, you start to heel and a scab forms. But, at any moment, anything can trigger that scab to come off, making you feel pain, once again. Just like this candle had triggered something for me.

A thought that crossed my mind not only once but times and times again was how was this going to affect my daily life. It would be hard. I lived, shared, laughed, cried, worried with her. It was difficult since I had never experienced this before, but one thing is for sure, I don’t EVER want to experience this again.

I remembered something my mother had told me while my grandmother was sick, “try to spend as much time with her as possible” and I did, and I’m so glad I did.

So many memories started to pop up in my head, leading me to think of the last words I told her. “I’ll see you later,” I whispered to her ear, followed by a hug and a kiss on her soft, warm, wrinkled cheek.

As I shredded my tears, my mom and aunt tried to comfort me, even so, it wasn’t much since they, as well, were teary. I wanted to stop crying, I was in pain, emotionally and physically, yet, crying seemed like the right answer.

It's hard. Just the thought that you were having a normal day, walking, not knowing what you are walking home too, and finally trying to put the puzzle pieces together and seeing how this is all going to play out in the future.

I felt bad, soo very bad. Imagining how others were feeling people even closer to her like my mom, trying to be strong, to help us. Or maybe those people who didn’t understand one thing that was going on, like my cousin, so young and he heard me and my sister cry with despair, so young that doesn’t even understand the concept of death.

What I simply did not know was how some people had experienced this before and seem okay. Would I be able to be ok? Would I get pass this? The thought of this not being something so rare made me feel the tiniest bit relieved.

A doubt went through my head. Would she be ok? Would she suffer? Would she miss us? I had no possible answer for this since no one really knows what happens after you’re gone.

It was a long night, at least it felt long. My heart was in sync with the tik tok of the clock. I felt cold inside and out and I was crowded with emotions. Even though I was surrounded by people, I was lonely as if I were on a deserted island.

Suddenly the words: Look on the bright side, at least she’s not suffering and we can now be in peace, came out of my mother’s mouth. Of course, she said this, like any rational person, she tries to look on the bright side. But now, my real suffering would commence.

Now I had experienced pain. All those times too scared to ride a bike, scared to fall and feel pain was nothing compared to the pain I was feeling.

An idea was brought back to me. The most stressful part was that I kept thinking of how I was having a normal day, walking around under the sky, and not knowing what was going on in that hospital. She had to be alone. And this made me feel even more alone.

I went to bed, but I was so weak that I didn’t even change my clothes. When I laid in my bed, I was still weeping. Nothing had changed.

I thought of how lucky I was (not paying attention to the fact my grandmother had passed). I had lived my whole life far away from my grandmother, however, I had recently moved in with her. This gave me the idea that this event happened for a reason: it was God’s way of preparing me to say goodbye.

I let everyone think that I had cried myself to sleep. But not really, my body was asleep and I wasn’t crying, at least on the outside I wasn’t.

My heart ached and my brain with it. This triggered an important question that would lead us to the end of this unfortunate story. If I could see her one last time, have a second chance to breathe the same air as her, what would I do? It was a simple answer.

A second chance, with a second chance I would kiss her on her soft, warm, wrinkly cheek.