I remember the day started off as a normal day, Mom woke me and Zeph up, Miah already up and about getting ready. I stretch around in bed before really waking up. Once I wake up. Mom is sluggish as she walks around the house. While most likely staying the night at the hospital. I go and give her a hug because I don’t know what it’s like sitting around in that dark lonely hospital room making sure Grandpa is going to make it out okay. After we finish hugging, I make my cereal, and walk into my room looking for dress clothes because it’s time for another home basketball game. Mom yells “I’m going to drop off Miah, Zeph be ready when I get back.” I yell into Zeph’s room that he needs to get ready. Mom is in a rush today,I throw on a pair of ripped jeans and a nice flowy shirt and finish up my cereal trying not to spill milk all over my shirt. When Mom gets back, Zeph runs out with nothing ready, which I know will stress out Mom, but I ensure her, that he ate and is dressed somewhat okay. I brush my teeth and hop into the car ready to go “happily” enjoy another day of middle school. Mom wishes me luck and that she will see me at the game.

When I get to school I walk into the gym where I see Averi and Sydney sitting in the middle of the gym floor, where we always sit, so I join them.Averi compliments my shirt. I say thank you, and then the bell rings. I’m off to Career Explorations. All my hours go by slower than usual today, and i’ve been watching the clock, waiting for the bell to ring to go to lunch, when I finally get to the lunchroom, I meet up with Grace, Averi, Dillan, and Sydney. We all sit at our table and rant about how terrible school is and how we want to go home. I share my lunch like always and everyone else does the same, and the bell rings telling us that it’s time to go back to our classes, after lunch the only class i look forward to is 7th hour, because they all get me pumped for the game. I hear the announcement bell go off and I know it’s game time. I rush up the stairs to meet my team in the gym, where Mrs.Richards has brought me and Grace’s advil, for the raging headaches we have before games. We all get ready for the game, me, Wesley, and Grace all do our daily snapchat skit, and walk around because it is to painful to watch the B teams play, with all the turnovers and horrid layups. We hear the buzzer for half time and my team meets in the locker room to do the team rituals, we do our team prayer, our “hype” jumps, and lastly the good luck hugs. After everyone gets ready and leaves me and Grace do our own ritual, one fig before the game. We all run out of the locker room and start layup drills, then jump shots, and lastly 3’s to get the boys on the sideline hype for the game. Once the game starts we are off to a good start and then team loses intensity and the determination to win, and we end up losing the game. Me, Grace, and Natalie storm off the court because us three HATE the feeling of losing. I rush into the locker room throw my shoes into my bag and go find my mom and my basketball coach who comes to watch, and they tell me what I need to work on, and we go home.

When I get home I jump into the shower, and when I get out everyone is sitting in the living room, I know exactly what they are about to say, Mom tells me to sit down and I do, and I can already feel the tears rushing into my eyes and my mom says the words I keep replaying in my head “Grandpa is gone.”

I run into my room lock the door and hide in the closet trying to convince myself that it’s not real and everything is going to be okay like he said. I hear soft knocking on the door and I yell at whoever it is to go away and I hear the footsteps slowly walk away. Mom knocks on the door saying that she knows how unfair it is, and I cry even harder and I try to think of every single memory that I held with him, every laugh, anything I could remember was rushing to my head all at the same time.

After about forty five minutes of bawling my eyes out, I head to my room open up my macbook and type the words “Grace, my grandpa died.”. I didn’t know how to feel about the fact that he was gone. Seconds later I get a rush of messages from so many people telling me how sorry they are are for me, I can’t deal with all that right now, so I turn off my phone, shut my computer, and sleep, I just sleep. The next morning everyone is sluggish and tearing up at any eye contact with another. When I got to school I went to the bathroom with Averi and just cried, as the great friend she is, she stayed there comforted me and helped me hold it together for the rest of the day.

It is now been four months since he has died and I still cry everyday, but I know my grandpa, my grandpa the one who would tell me that I can miss him, but I cannot sit around all day and feel bad for myself, that I need to keep moving on with my life, and that he will always be there to watch me, and keep me safe.

R.I.P Grandpa 12/1/16