I was getting off the bus after a wonderful day of school. Running inside to tell Mom about it but when I got inside something wasn’t right. Dad was gone. Our night flipped into emotions that I had never turned to before. Dad was at the hospital with my grandma and his brothers. I asked if we could go but then she said no not today, all I wanted to do was know what was happening. When my dad came home I asked what had happened and he explained to me that Grandma was sick but the doctors were going to take care of her. I knew that when I went to the doctor they gave me medicine and I was out of the doctor in an hour or two. I knew that she was going to be fine and that she was my grandma and nothing could hurt her. She is my everything and if they took her they took me too.  My brain was going through every possible situation and everything that could happen to her but I never really had a bad feeling. The feeling I could call the first stage did not hit me that hard. She was going to survive so What did I have to worry about?

One Saturday afternoon we went to visit her. The long weeks of not seeing her questioned if she was okay. I was so excited to see her. One thing I do remember doing with her is coloring at her house. Everything was there the coloring pages were laid out on the counter with markers right next to it. We all colored her a paper because she would love it and we went to Target and picked up some frames for our school pictures. I was wondering why we had to buy her these because I still thought she would go home very soon. My mind was still thinking maybe Grandma lives there for some reason but that was not the case. We got there and the look in her eyes was sadness and loneliness but when we came in and gave her the coloring pages she lit up and told us to hang them up right in front of her. That is when it hit me that Grandma was there and would be there for a long time.  

I was in fourth grade in one of my favorite classes and one of our things as a class we did was origami. One of my friends named Maggie, Her brother had just been diagnosed with cancer and he was not doing well. My teacher had an idea about origami cranes; if you made a thousand, they would watch over them and help them. It was good luck. Once we made them, we all wrote our names on a page showing that we all did these and we are praying for him. I had an idea that my grandma had cancer so we should make some for her after that was not the same. I walked into class and everyone was asking about her. It was like when the crows find something and will not leave it alone. I was wondering why are they freaking out about my grandma. That is when all the emotions I was feeling anger, worry, and scared all came to my realization that all these things were happening and I couldn`t handle it. I would tell them about her and tell them she was fine or give the updates I had but it was like every day was on repeat about how she was doing I loved the support but sometimes it was too much that I couldn’t handle it.

She finally came home for a month or two and we didn’t visit her because now she was very fragile. She laid on her couch and we would call her or text her that was about it. In the months following her being home for a little while she became more with us. She came over to dinner one night. I remember the night it was bright and we had so many new things we got to show her. The sky had no clouds in it and we were eating dinner outside. She loves corn on the cob and so we had corn on the cob. We had ice cream and was great until that night when she went home. The night when she came over was a night I will remember. When she left the hospital they told her to watch what she was eating and she did. She thought that after a few months, she could start eating normal stuff again. When she went home she started feeling very sick and she could barely walk. My dad missed the call from her and none of her kids picked up the phone she then called 911 and they came to get her my dad saw the alert on his phone and met the police at the house. She then was transferred back to the hospital she was at and they sent her through another scan after they got fluids in her and it came back with a stronger cancer. The clog was something that still happens to this day but the stronger cancer was not expected. I woke up and my mom told me everything and why dad was gone again. Grandma was not doing good and my mind was going straight to the movies. The movies that the family watches their loved ones with cancer leave them. It was replaying and replaying in my head. My emotion was not even bearable and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t help but I knew that everyone was there for each other. 

As we were going through all of this and all the hospital trips we got closer with my dad's siblings. The three of them were there the whole time for each other and there for her. After watching their dad passed away over 15 years ago from smoking. They did not want that to happen again. The memories of her when she would take care of them after grandpa died or when she passed out when my dad cut his finger off. She didn’t give up on them. It was like an angel came down and blessed her. After long hard months in the hospital, she was getting better. She got a lot better and she could come out of the hospital again. We all found a fun run that was for colon cancer, the cancer she had. My life was becoming brighter, I was happy again, and that fun run was one of my best memories of the whole ride for her. She was at the finish line waiting for all my family. The love and support my family gave was everything to her. Still to this day, she watches what she eats but she is better than she was before. She was loved through it and as the doctors said “She is a living miracle”.