Dead End

I hate that I can’t run anymore.

Running was always my hobby. Ever since I can remember. It helped me go through middle school and it’s helping me survive highschool. Whenever and wherever something happened I would run. I practiced running day and night and became the best but now here I am, legs stuck to the ground not being able to move a muscle as my mother tells me my grandmother is sick in the hospital. Ironic that I’m going to be moving more than 10km yet still can’t run isn’t it? No matter how much dance nights I’ve run away from or how many arguments… all of that confidence of mine blew away in one second. I am like a disable ex-runner now. I will never be able to run away from this. My grandma is sick and she will die.

My grandmother and I are really close. Since I’m the first girl after her in the family. My dad and his brothers were the only children of hers. She also only has brothers. So being the first born everyone excpected a boy but I was there happy miracle. Like a good luck charm to my family. I would be extatic to go over to the countryside and visit my grandma after 4 years of not seeing her but… I would much rather not see her for 10 years than come see her one last time and say my goodbyes. Me and my brother always complained about not going over more but now all I want is for today to be normal and be forced to call her because I miss her not because I’m balling my eyes out not wanting her gone.

My mother did always tell me to face my problems but this heartbreak is exactly why I ignore her senseless advice. One she doesn’t even follow herself. She only has 1 month left to live and of course the first 3 days just consisted of crying while hugging each other and my parents pushing the doctors to find something. After those 3 days we had to really let it set in, we did all we could to make my grandma Lina comfortable. My grandma said she the hardest thing for her was that she won’t get to see me graduate highschool. Apparently to her she wanted to live long enough that her grandchildren remember her. I told her I’ll definitely remember her and I’ll talk with my 7 year old brother about her regularly so he doesn’t forget. At night I slept next to my grandma to hear all her stories about the things she went through. She kept talking about grandpa which I’ve haven’t really met since he died when I was 1 year old. She said when he was dying he encouraged grandma to keep living for the both of them so that they can see their grandchildren old even though she was really heartbroken and wanted to follow him she stayed strong and eventually learned to keep living peacefully. After that I started to pour my heart out to her about how dad and mom were doing. She was disappointed to find out that dad had his his problems with mother for that long. She reassured me that she’ll talk to them. My grandma is different from other grown ups. When I told mom’s brother he just told me it would be okay and brushed it off clearly showing that he didn’t want to deal with it. My mom and her older brother lost their parents when mom first got married. Maybe that’s why they avoid problems. To avoid the heartbreak. It’s too hard to open up.

My parents have been closed off from each other and fight a bit for the past 3 months. My mother purposely get’s home late from work most days to spend as much less time from dad as she can. Honestly when I think about it maybe I was just too young to notice that they go through periods of time where they are like this. Because whenever I ask dad about it he says don’t worry everything will pass and of course mom changes the subject all together. Grandma I hope you can get to the bottom of this.

My mother and grandmother made leche flan and told me and my little brother Dad to give it to grandma’s next door neighbor, miss Kim and Mr Luca. When we gave it to miss Kim she told us to get in and wait for her to return the plate. While we were waiting in the living room we found out about Mr Luca’s story. About how he was a professional swimmer but got into an accident and couldn’t walk for 6 years. He kept doing physical therapy till he got all his strength and control back. Even after that though he was to afraid to start swimming again, because he didn’t want to experience the defeat and hoplesness of building something amazing then having to loose it without control over what’s going to happen. That’s when he met miss Kim. She taught him to fall in love with his passion, to be strong and never ever give up and to face the fear head on. Most importantly she was there for him and through that he has won more than 33 medals in his life. 6 being from after his accident. It was a very touching story. I complimented him on his bravery and he said “you should never let fear control you”. Later after returning with an apple pie pan from miss Kim I went to my mother to try and unravel her problems with dad. I asked her why she doesn’t want to stay with him anymore. She didn’t budge no matter how much I pleaded. I felt so angry and defeated and thought that all that “facing your fears” is just for stronger people. I ran to grandma’s room.

Grandma told me that the reason mom and dad aren't being close is because dad wants to move away by himself for work and of course mom doesn't like that idea. But dad is insists on that idea because apparently the city is getting much to expensive and dad wants to be prepared for anything that might happen in the future... Like grandma's situation.