When people die, you don’t expect life to become so challenging. So challenging, that you find yourself in a dark place trying to find some sort of light. I was taught you have to take what life throws at you, and try to move on. Living life to the fullest means everything to me. You never know when it’s going to be your time or a family member in that case. With the death of a family member, you almost feel like nothing’s ever going to be the same.

My great Aunt Sharon was very important to me, and my family. She taught me how to talk in the Donald Duck voice, which she became known for, and she always took me for rides in her car. She would always make sure to go to the store to buy me a candy bar, and let me pick out a movie. Because she was my grandma’s twin, she was like my second grandma.

We got a phone call around seven p.m, and it was my dad. He was on his way to Lynden when he saw my aunt’s car in the ditch. He saw her lying on the ground. She had ejected from her car, where she instantly got brain damage. My dad had to see that. When we went to the hospital we found her lying in the bed, not conscious. She had suffered severe damage to her brain. The doctors said she didn’t have a good chance of making it. It was only a week later when she had passed away. That moment still lives inside me today. The death of my aunt tore my family apart. My mom suffered through a depression. She couldn’t even get out of the house, to go to the store. I had to sit and watch my family go through more hardships then we’ve ever had before. At such a young age, I really didn’t fully understand what was happening. I knew she was never coming back, but I didn’t know why God took her away from my family. Why would he do this to us?

Despite the hardships, I began to learn how to cope with the death. It wasn’t easy, but I knew I had to be there for my family, in their time of grief. The funeral really opened my eyes. It was the first funeral that I really got to experience, and it was there that I realized she was never coming back. It was a surreal thing for everybody.

Through that experience I grew as a person, and I grew spiritually. I learned how to trust God and I learned how to let him into my life again, so that he could help me get through her death. Even though the moments, like at the hospital when she died, weren’t great at all, I learned that it’s okay to feel sad, and to have anger towards God, but to remember that she was in a better place. I learned that there was a reason for everything.

There are three life lessons that I gave myself after the death of my aunt. One, live life to the fullest. Two, don’t take life for granted. Three, live life in the moment, not in the past. When you’re only seven, you don’t realize what’s going on. For me I needed to be there for my family and myself. I grew more mature at that moment because death was something to take seriously. We need to slow down in life and figure out what’s important to us, and go after those things. I’m sixteen now and I am able to deal with the loss, and accept it. I am who I am today because of my family and the moments that life throws at me.

R.I.P. Aunt Sharon