Just a Memory

I've always been attached to my grandma. Maybe it was because she had come over to my house all the time when I was little to watch me and my younger sister. Or maybe it was because I use to stay the night with her on Saturday nights so I could go to church with her the next morning. Whatever the reason behind it, she was like my best friend.

I had always gone to my grandma for advice or whenever I was feeling down. She always knew how to cheer me up or what to say. I would go and stay the nights with her almost every night during the summer while I was in middle school. We would go to church together on Sunday and then go out to eat afterwards.

She had breast cancer years before I was born. They had to go in and remove the breast completely because of how bad the cancer was at the time. After that surgery was done and over with, she was cancer free; which must of been a huge relief for my dad at the time. I had always wondered about it, but she would just say she had surgery. As I grew older, I understood it a little more and knew it was breast cancer.

My grandma was cancer free for years, until she started getting sick while I was in my 8th grade year of school. The doctor said she had leukemia and lymphoma; that was the hardest thing at the time that I could hear. She had to have chemo therapy for awhile to help with the cancer. In all honesty, it didn't seem to be working, but I had to hang on to the hope that I still had for her.

There was a time where it had gotten so bad that she was hospitalized at St. Rita's for what seemed like forever. My dad would take us up there to see her every night, but it just had gotten harder and harder to see her sick in the hospital. Eventually, she was strong enough to be released and was able to go back home. I had went and stayed with her for awhile to help her out since she was still somewhat weak from the chemo and being sick for so long.

She had seemed to be getting better by the day; so I started spending more time with my friends. The one night where I was suppose to stay with her and go to church the next morning, I had stayed with a friend instead. The next day, my mother had picked me up from the bowling alley I was at with my friend. She told me she had something to tell me and I figured my dad was picking us up from her house early for his night with us. She told me, instead, my grandma had passed away that night in her sleep.

She didn't make it to church that day, so her friends were concerned and tried calling the house; there was no answer. She would normally call my dad after church to tell her she was on her way out to his house, but he never receieved a call from her. He had decided to go check up on her at her house. When he got there, he called for her, but there was no response. He had found her in her favorite chair, in her nightgown, unresponsive.

I was a miserable mess for months. I felt like if I would of been there that night like I was suppose to, I could of saved her. I felt at fault for her passing for the longest time. I had lost my best friend and grandma. I still get choked up about it whenever I think about it and it's been a little over four years now. I had actually started crying typing up this blog.

She is at peace now and no longer hurting. She had tought me many things in life that I still haven't forgotten. I always wonder what she'd think of me being all grown up and going to college. I just hope she is proud of the person I am today.