I remember it like it was yesterday. We all hoped it would get better. Maybe even go away. We all hoped that it wasn’t as big of a deal than it actually ended up being. I remember the day my mother told me that my grandfather had cancer. My Papa, the rock of our closely bonded family. I sat there on the couch in shock. The shock that was soon followed by a surge of tears. I remember thinking… How could this possibly be? Why my family? It wasn’t long after that that sitting on the couch turned into sitting in a white blank hospital room.

I walked into the room, where I saw every person that I would never want to lose. They were laughing, and even though that made me feel more comfortable, I still felt anxious. Ever since I was little, hospitals always worried me. In my eyes, they were a place for helpless innocent people who needed to be healed. I looked at my grandfather. He looked normal, a little pale, but he was still talking the same and telling the same old stories about people that had died years before. I just stood in the doorframe with a fake smile, trying to make it look like I wasn't nervous. Before I knew it, he smiled and yelled my nickname that he had given me when I was a little girl. “Lydie Boo! Come on in here girl!” he said in his old raspy voice. In that moment, everything felt okay. I felt like a little girl again, when everything was normal and simple. When everyone was healthy. I said hello, smiled a real smile, and walked over to my grandmother. She pulled me into her lap that I outgrew years ago, yet it made me feel comfortable. Safe.

The weeks went by, leaves fell, and frost began to form on the tips of twigs. We were told no good news. We all felt out of the know. There was no more hope, unless a miracle was coming our way. Papa decided that he wanted to go to my aunt's house that overlooked the land he grew up on. I think that made him feel better, to get out of that hospital and return to where he belonged. Where we all belonged.

Our whole family, all thirteen of us, lived together in that house for one month. Everyone came to visit him. He was a local legend. That included family and friends, old girlfriends of his, even people I have never even heard of! He was important to everyone. The parents didn’t have to cook once for that whole month. The house piled up with lasagnas, soups, salads, deserts, anything you could possibly think of was brought to us. I remember Valentine’s Day, the day we all made him a giant card and brought it to him. And I remember the snow days. The snow days when visitors couldn’t even drive up the driveway and my cousins and I made an igloo outside his huge window. It was cold outside. But inside, where our family was, where the love was, felt warm.

The night of the igloo, that's how I remember it, was the most memorable night we had. It was sad and frustrating in a way. Frustrating in a way that made me angry that we were having to deal with this illness together. We all stood together around the bed, held hands, and prayed. We all added something to the prayer, but whether or not people could hear us through our tears I don’t know. I will never forget the words of the last person who spoke. It was Papa. “I do not want you all to be sad forever,” he said as he took a deep breath and held our hands tighter, “this was in God’s plans for us. And always remember, I love you all.” This was the first and last time I had ever seen my grandfather cry. Looking back on it now, that was the moment where I realized that I couldn’t have dealt with that difficult time without them. We were all together, all supporting each other when we needed it most. It was beautiful.

Papa passed away five days later, on a cold and snowy Friday morning. Our family felt empty and weak, yet so strong at the same time. We had each other's support. What else would we ask for? The funeral was postponed due to the snow, which meant more trips to the funeral home, more planning, more waiting. Six hundred people showed up to his visitation, six hundred people from a small town and beyond. I remember standing in front of everyone and greeting each and every one of them. They all had such sad faces. It reminded me that not only had we lost such a huge part of our family, but we had lost an incredible part of the community too. The day after the visitation was the day we would say our final goodbyes. My younger cousins and I stood in front of the church, with notes we wrote to our grandfather attached to ten balloons filled with helium. We stood there with snow melting beneath our feet, as we tried to stay warm enough to release our balloons. There were countless amounts of tears as we released our thoughts we never got to express into the cold gray sky. We watched our balloons grow smaller and smaller, until they were no longer with us. They were with him. As we stood together and looked up at the heavens, we knew that with the love of our closely knitted family, we all beat cancer.