Many people have these ups and downs in life that are taken as a rollercoaster. The most difficult time of my life, was knowing I lost my 10 year old cousin.

I was 13 at that time, and in 8th Grade. It was Friday, February 8th. I had a school holiday, so I stayed home with my little sister. That morning I regret even waking up to go outside, I woke up around 10. My mother was in the living room on the phone. It was weird to me, because I was thinking she already had left to go to work, but I was mistaken.

  I didn’t know with who she was talking with. We have family in Mexico, but it never came across my mind that she was talking with a family member over there. I did my morning routine, and decided to go out to the living room.

  When I walked in, my mother was in tears, right away bad thoughts running through my mind. I sat next to her, trying to kind of hear the conversation, but never did it came across my mind what was about to be said. When she ended the call, immediately more tears were streaming down her face.

  “Mom what happened, is everything alright”, I asked.

  “Your cousin passed away”, once she said that I immediately froze.

  “Which cousin?”, I managed to ask, trying not to choke on my own words. 

  She raised her head, and said “Chloe”.

I couldn’t hold in my tears any longer, I immediately broke down. That day and the rest of the weekend, we stayed home. All I was thinking was, it had been so long since we saw each other. I never got to see her again, or say my goodbyes. She was too young, too gentle. She had some problems here and there, but it never stopped her to do what she loved most. She was tall, and with short light brown hair that fell just above her shoulder.

She had dark brown eyes, which were inherited by her father. She was always this bundle of joy, always happy never had a care in the world. Every summer I went back to Mexico for vacation, and she would always greet me with a huge and contagious smile. My vacations ended 6 years ago, we couldn’t go and visit anymore.  

My biggest mistake growing to be a teenager was that I always took family for granted. On Monday, the start of the a new week it was hard to go to school, I was really depressed after. Months passed and my depression grew more and more. At school you would see me with a smile, but inside I was hurting. I always kept my feelings bottled up.

Until the day I graduated from 8th grade, I promised myself to let go. I needed to know that there weren’t anything for me to do. Since that day on I came to the conclusion that you can’t take family for granted. We all never know when God decides to take us with him. For me this was just a lesson to learn, that you never know when our time could just be over. My way of seeing life changed from that point and on.