I remember when my mom first told me. I could remember that overwhelming feeling of anger, fear, and pain rushing into my veins. I could feel hot tears cut paths of cold down pale cheeks, turning a rosy pink in the early March air.

My grandfather had cancer.

At first, I didn’t want to believe what she had said. I didn’t want the words that my mother had said to be true. I can remember pulling myself into a little ball. And as my shaky legs carried me to my rom, I collapsed on my floor, overwhelmed with emotion. I couldn’t believe that the man who had always been the picture of health and strength was dying.

I can remember calling my best friend, my voice too thick with emotion and grief to actually form sentences. Erin had hugged me the next morning when my mom had forced me to go to school.  I can remember being curled into my desk chair in my health class. I remember not wanting to do my work and almost starting to cry again when our ex-navy health teacher yelled at me to do my work or she would kick me out of class.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone in that class, which is odd for me because I love talking. I could remember pulling the oversized sleeves on my hoodie over my hands and pressing my face into them and wanting to cry…  I remember leaning into Erin and the feeling of her chubby little hand rubbing across my back until my class was over and I could finally leave and curl up in another chair.

August of that same year blew through my heart like a freight train. When my mother told me that my grandfather was getting sicker, that he needed treatment and surgery to have a chance to get better. I felt mixed emotions; happiness mixed with more anger and sadness and the urge to go and see him.

By October and into November, everyone in the family knew my grandfather was going to die. We all knew that he was going to leave us. And when he finally did in December, it was okay. My grandfather was at peace because he wasn’t sick anym0re and he wasn’t in pain…