“Where is he going?” I shyly asked my mom, “When is he coming back?” I leaned against the hard cement wall and slid down it with tears streaming down my face. I folded my arms over my chest and tucked my legs in tight. I wondered when the world had turned so bad, why everything turned so cold. I always imagined this big world full of bright colors, but I didn’t see that world anymore. My world had turned to black and white, every turn I made seemed to come to an end, I felt trapped. I looked around the room I was in, nobody was smiling, and nobody was laughing.

I remembered the day I came home and found out my grandpa’s cancer had spread to his brain; it was a Tuesday and I just arrived home from school. My mom was sitting on the couch, the television was off, and there was silence. I put my backpack down and sat next to her as she broke the news to my brother and I. “But he’s going to be ok, isn’t he?” My mom nodded her head and began to cry, “Then why are you crying?” She just kept repeating, “He’s going to be ok.”

I was still sitting on the hospital floor; there were nurses and stretchers constantly racing by me. The idea was coming to me that my grandpa was not going to come back. My mom turned to a nurse and was talking to her about some sort of paperwork. I stood up and tapped both my mom and the nurse on the shoulder, “They’ll take care of grandpa, right?” The nurse nodded her head and smiled, and that made me feel better because she was the only person that was smiling in the whole room.

Both my brother and my father had left, but I had wanted to stay with my mom until she was able to go home. I decided to take a seat on one of the chairs in the waiting room, and the nurse sat next to me. She knew why I was there, “How old are you?” She asked me. “Seven,” I responded. She took my hand and held it for a couple seconds and then got up and left.

My mom finally was able to go home, but when we got in the car the leather seats were ice cold and it didn’t feel like we had ever escaped the bitter cold of the outdoors. My mom fell silent and I didn’t even bother saying a word. I looked out my window the whole trip home and just thought. I thought about what I’ll do on the weekends, which I usually spent with my grandpa, or what I’d do when I needed to call him about good news. The more I thought, the more I realized that my world was beginning to change completely. I was being exposed to real pain and sadness and it was only the beginning. I wondered what was in store for my life, when I would be the one people were crying over.

I arrived back to my house only to march straight up to my room and shut the door behind me. I sat down on my bed and that’s when it really hit me.

All of those trips I would take to my grandpa’s were over.

When I would go there and we would eat some sort of German dinner, and after we would always sit together with him teaching me notes on the piano that I always ended up forgetting. I didn’t have him to go to anymore when I forgot those notes. I didn’t have those moments anymore when he would sit by the window watching me chase his dog in the backyard. Everything was now simply a memory, but forever a life changing experience that made me realize that I was no longer the little kid I was yesterday. I was shown the real harm that life brings to everyone. I always pictured a life where we could all laugh, like a little kid, and just maybe we could see the good in the world again.