My grandpa was always a kind man for as long as I knew him, the stories we would tell me were memories that I will always keep in my life. My Grandpa had been a old and weary man, with the wrinkle face of a bulldog and the intense attitude of one. When I first noticed him changing he was still his same old self but there was something about him that was different and I was never able to put my hand on it. When I turned eight my grandpa couldn't play out in the yard anymore and was always inside the house but me being a little kid who didnt know any better would always ask him to go play even though I knew what the answer would be but those were still one of the happiest years of my life, one i´ll never forget.

When I was nine my family finally decide to tell me what was happening to my grandpa, and he was the one to do it; he always had the say saying when it came to one on one talks.

¨If you have something to tell a man, do it eye to eye to still be a man.¨

I never knew what that saying meant but at an older age I think I understand the lesson my grandpa was trying to teach me which is no matter what you have to tell a person say it to there face so you still have the pride and integrity of a man who still has honor in him. That day my grandpa told me that he was very sick with brain cancer, I know was suppose to be in shock by this news but at the time I didn't know what it meant and that it would change me forever. He went over that it was the reason that he never played outside or inside anymore and that their was five tumors in his head that were slowly killing him. When I learned he was dying my smile ran away from my face and I panicked, I didn't want him to leave me he was my best friend what would I do without him. I never thought that something like this would happen to someone so close to me death seemed so unimportant in my life but it creeps up on you and takes away everything that you care the most about.

When my grandpa first collapsed at home I knew what was going on, the cancer. He had fallen many times at home and was to stubborn to go to the hospital saying he wanted to spend his remaining time with us but then that was my grandpa with the heart of an ox. He had finally gone to the hospital because he had fallen and had lost consciousness and when he woke up in that dull, colorless room, where only the dead seem to speak he knew it finally was over. The hospital was a bleak affair, with a smell of heavy loads of vanilla. Ourtime at the hospital was brief he didn't talk to us for long on our visits because he was always hooked up to something. The day I was sent to my other grandparents was just like an other day, my other grandma was always slobbing when she looked at me that day; why? I didn't know and what I didn't know is that my grandpa didn't have long to live. While I was gone the rest of my family said their goodbyes to him and cried themselves a river for it would be the last time they ever saw him alive.

The next day he passed, the cancer in his brain had been growing and it was just too much for him to handle. The day after that I was finally told that he was gone; the one who taught me everything, The one who has made me the man I am today, my best friend was gone. As I went into the stages of grief I found it impossible to pass the acceptance part of it. In my young age it had been that way because of me just not knowing how to accept it but (now at the age of sixteen) I know that I'll never get over it, for there was no closer for me that day and there can now never be closer for me again;

as I grow I forgot more and more about my youth but can never forget the wonderful time I spent with my grandfather and the lessons on life that he shared with me,which is all I have left of him now. Something I can't get out of my head is this this he always use to say, so as the great Bob used to say;

¨Life's a b****, and you need to deal with that.¨

This old saying of his keeps ringing in my head as the last thing he said to me that I remember but I really not sure; it's possible that it's just him trying to get me to move on, which I try to do everyday but I know I can never do, because when he died a part of my went with him.