My next door neighbors and my family are really close so when the daughter Crystal had a baby two years ago we were all really happy for her and wanted to see him. His name was Cyrus. He was the cutest baby you would’ve seen. He was very independent and wanted to learn things on his own. Cyrus would always joke around and lock you out of the house. Every time I came home from school I would look at the window of their house and he would be sitting there smiling at me. He and I would always play in the front yard but those days are gone. When I get home and look in that window he’s not going to be sitting there smiling at me. When it’s snowing outside he and I won’t be able to joke around in it. We can’t play in the leaves in the fall.

Cyrus is now in heaven. He had shaken baby syndrome. Someone shook him trying to calm him down and he got a blood clot in his brain. When his mother went to go pick him up from where he was at he wouldn’t wake up. She took him to the hospital and they had to do surgery on him immediately. After the surgery he had a stroke and passed away. The good things that came out of it were that they donated his organs to three other babies and saved their lives. The bad thing was that he is not with us anymore. We can’t look at his smiles anymore. We can’t hear his laughs or see him joking around by locking the door. The day of the funeral was really hard for me. I didn’t go to school because the funeral was at ten in the morning. I walked into the church and I saw the priest walking the coffin down the aisle. I started crying really hard. I looked over at my mother and knew she was thinking about her dad and the funeral we had to go to for him. I felt really bad for her and wished I could do something for her.

I looked around the church to look for Crystal. I didn’t see her until she went up to the front with her parents. After an hour of listening to everything the priest had to say we all went outside to give everyone a hug. We got into our car and drove all the way to Brooklyn to watch Cyrus go into the ground. It was really hard for me to watch because I thought about my stepmother. I never got to go to my stepmother’s funeral. I had a thousand thoughts running through my mind. I didn’t know what to do at the time. After Cyrus went into the ground people started giving their condolences. I saw Crystal hugging her aunt and I heard her say “I don’t know what to do anymore I can’t do this’. I felt so bad. I know everyone misses Cyrus dearly. I know I do.