“Right this way please,” a nurse led my family and me through the hospital corridor. Bright lights seemed to swallow my third grade body up and burn my skin. As we twisted and turned at every corner, the nurse held small talk. I paid no attention. I was too excited to see my great grandma and ask her about the birthday present she was planning on getting me. After what felt like miles of walking, we finally opened the door to her room. I coughed from the musty odor.

“You should open up the windows in here,” my mother remarked to the nurse. Pushing past the dusty furniture, I jumped onto my great grandmother’s bed.

“Katya!” her face lit up with joy.

“How are you feeling?” my father asked.

“Much better. Hopefully I will be well enough to get out of here soon. My neighbor over there is always so grouchy. I can’t even watch some television without her constant complaining.” She smiled and pointed across the room to a closed curtain where another person lay. “Nobody ever visits her. I think that is why she is never in a good mood,”

That visit was the last time I can remember my great grandmother as the positive, cheerful person she had been throughout her entire ninety-four years of life. At the time, I was not aware that it was my final real time spent with her. She didn’t have a sickness; it was the hip surgery that had changed her. Maybe if the surgery had gone differently, she might have been able to live longer.

“It isn’t looking so well. We’re not exactly sure what happened during the surgery. The doctors seem to have made a mistake, she is ninety-four years old, after all,” the nurse looked uncomfortable as she walked us down the long corridor a week or so later.

“What do you mean you aren’t sure? How do you not know what happened?” my mom demanded, her face a crimson red. I wasn’t listening much; I was reciting the list of presents I wanted for my birthday inside of my head. As we entered the room, my mom held me back from jumping onto her hospital bed. “Grandmother is very sick, honey,”

“What’s wrong with her?” my ignorant third grade self asked. I watched my great grandmother. Her skin, unlike the last week I had visited her, was a sickly pale color. She watched us with an unsteady gaze.

“Her memory is gone. We don’t know when it’ll come back,” my mom said, trying to put it into simple terms. She walked up to her and tried taking her hand. My great grandmother pulled away screaming.

“She can’t talk or eat or go to the bathroom by herself anymore,” I heard the nurse loudly whisper to my father. “There’s nothing we can do about it,”

“Maybe she’ll remember me,” I looked at my mom who looked down on me solemnly. Walking over to my great grandmother, I smiled nervously. “Hey grandma, it’s me,”

To this day, I still remember the empty look in her usually warm gray eyes. She stared back at me as though I was a stranger, as though she had never seen me before. From that moment on, despite me still being in third grade, I knew my great grandmother was gone. I knew I would never get her back. Life isn’t a fairytale; people don’t wake up from their sleep if they’re already dead. My great grandmother was already dead inside. A few weeks later, she passed away.

You don’t really know when a day will be someone’s last. It is important to not take people for granted. As the years pass by, I have matured and therefore understand this now. When I was younger, it was hard for me to process what had happened. When I look back upon my great grandmother, I do not remember her as the person she had been that last day I had visited her in the hospital. I remember her as the warm hearted person she had been her entire life.