Have you ever lost someone you loved? Have you ever looked down on the cold body that once was the person you loved, noticed how weird it was seeing them so lifeless, this person you laughed and cried with, whom you shared your secrets with? Realized that you would never hear their voice again, or see their smile, or see their eyes light up? Or that you will never feel their arms wrapped around you again, how you wish you got to say “I love you” just one last time?

I wish I had known that that would be the last time I would see my grandma, but I was little,  I didn't understand that she could die, I didn't understand that there was a chance she wouldn't make it, that death could affect someone so close to me.

I had been living with my grandma at the time, just her and I. she used to come in and wake me up every morning for school. On time, after she had woken me up for school, i had decided to sleep in for a few minutes, and when i had finally gotten up, i went into her room to let her know. But when i got in there, she was lying one the bed, twitching and mumbling. And than i remember it stopped, and she seemed better at least to me, but i remember i had gotten her a cup of water and some yogurt balls to make her feel better. She was in the bathroom calling an ambulance, and when they arrived they asked me to get an outfit ready for her i think they said so she would have something to wear when she came back home.

  

My mom came and picked me up and brought me back to her place, and asked me if i wanted to go to the hospital with her, or stay there with my step dad or stay with my brother and sister. I hadn't really seen them in a while, and i knew that my grandma was going to be okay, that she was going to come back home soon, that everything would go back to normal.

I wish so bad that i had gone with my mom, i wish i had understood what kind of opportunity that was. When we went to try and visit her, we couldn't because she wasn't awake. But it was okay, i mean i wanted to see her, i missed her, but she was going to be better, and she would be home soon, i just knew it.

A little while later, a few days i think it was, my mom came and sat me down, and told me my grandmother hadn't made it. She gave me a stuffed bear that one of the nurses who had worked with my grandma had worked with, and it meant the world to me for years, because it reminded me of her. I cried so much that day, and so long after that.

Death is a weird thing, and it was hard seeing it first hand, so know myself that it happens, and the effects that it can have. After she died, i used to scoot over at night and pretend that she would come and lay next to me as i slept.

My grandma had wanted to be buried in New York, upstate not city, because that was where her son Toby was buried after he had passed away as a baby.

The funeral was weird. It was weird looking into the casket at who used to be my grandma, but was now cold, and pale, and lifeless. It was her, but at the same time, it wasn't. When they put her in the ground, and everyone threw dirt down, i didn't because i didn't want to get dirt one my second cousins glove i was borrowing, or maybe it was because i still wasn't ready to accept that she was gone. But i regret not doing that now.

I’m sorry grandma, I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I loved you one last time, I’m sorry. I miss you so much, and i wish you were here, but i know that you are making wherever you are a better place, and that’s where you belong now. I hope that wherever you are, that you are happy, and that I will never forget you, that no on whom you have touched their lives will never forget you.