Coming home from school was always a joyous occasion. I would run to my mom’s arms at the bus stop while I would wait for her to ask me what I did in school that day just so I could answer with the words everyone gives when asked that question; nothing mom. Except on this one day it wasn’t my mother who came to pick me up from the bus stop. It was my grandmother who was visiting from Cyprus. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see her too, but I had to know something strange was up. I went to go say hi to her and realized her eyes were red with tears running down. At that point I really didn’t want to know what was wrong. We continued to walk back into the house, I saw my mom in the kitchen doing the dishes but then when I looked over at the couch I saw something I’ve never seen before in my life, and to this day something I have never seen again. My father was sitting down and crying. I soon connected the dots in my head and realized my grandmother had passed away. It’s a strange feeling for an 11 year old to have. I knew I wanted to cry but for some reason I couldn’t. I just sat there in my dad’s arms trying to figure out how such a thing could happen.
Days went on and it was time for her funeral. We were sitting in church and the family was crying but not me; still no clue why. I while into the service, my aunt was passing out sucking candies. For some reason, my 2 year old brother ended up with one. 2 minutes later I hear someone choking. I didn’t want to turn around. All I saw was my dad grab my brother and run outside. My relatives thought that maybe my brother had to throw up or something but no one knew what was really going on. Here I am, at my grandmother’s funeral, and seeing my brother maybe take his last few breathes of air. It should be noted that on my grandmother’s deathbed all she had in her hand was a picture of my baby brother. One day I know they’ll be reunited, but not today, not now. At that moment I had all these thoughts running through my head and it all came out. I don’t think I ever cried aa much in my whole life. I truly knew what it meant to be completely and utterly hopeless and in control of absolutely nothing. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, all I could do was wait and see what happened. It was the longest 2 minutes of my life, but when the advisor of the church came up to our rows, all I could hear was his voice. “Everyone don’t worry, they got the piece of candy out and he’s doing ok.” Relief. That’s the only way I could describe it.
A couple days later, still trying to make sense of everything, I awoke on a Sunday morning and realized the hallway was brighter than usual. I looked up in the sparkling sun and saw my grandmother float down and tell me she loved me and that everything will be ok. I expected to soon wake up from this dream but guess what, I didn’t. I kept looking around and realized that it was for real. Pretty bizarre, and I understand why people would be skeptical about me saying what I saw, but I really really don’t care. That put so much joy into my heart and it gave me something that I couldn’t achieve on my own. Closure.