“Once upon a time there was a young boy named _____ _______, he had long hair.” Sadly, it had not been such a happy story as my friend had expected it to be. My childhood had not exactly been a preferable one compared to others. I had family I couldn’t associate with, and distant parents that favored my overachieving, so called “perfect” older brother, who I was always second to. I had few things to look forward to as a child, and even fewer friends that I could enjoy life with. But there had always been one person, the only person I felt close to and that understood me, was the first person to vanish from my life without a trace.

My story begins with me and my grandmother, back years ago when I had only been four. My grandmother was a very special person to me. She would always care for me and allow me to live in my fantasy world , thinking everything in the world was perfect and that no cruelties were intertwined in my life. These were the most happy years in my life, just me and her. She had passed away before I matured enough to realize what the word meant. Death. Such a foreign word to the ears of my younger self, the meaning slipping effortlessly over my head. I had no idea of where she went, being incapable of comprehending that she could just be, gone.

She had been everything to me. There was never a moment of the day when I was away from her; she comforted me, I never wanted to leave her side. I still remember laying next to her as she read me stories late at night in Polish, being the only language we would use in the house. I had no idea that any of it would ever change, but people could not live forever and I would soon grow older and realize life was cruel, and it did not favor the positive. It had been like this every night, just the two of us in her room at night, when my parents wanted me to be asleep. My parents to this day still say that they’ve never seen me happier than I was back when I still had her. I still cannot recall what happened that one night that entirely changed who I was. It had been a cool summer night, I recall looking up at the stars from the window that night, it had been so clear and bright out that evening. To this day I think back to that night and that morning, trying to remember, even the slightest bit from what happened that night, and how it was different than any other night of those four years. Any type of sign or difference that could have told me that I would lose her then.

It was that morning, I woke up and knew something was wrong right away. I laid there in silence, without the familiar sound of my grandmother's soft breath. I didn’t need to turn to know I was there alone in the bed, much too large for a small child like myself at the time. I refused to get up that morning until I knew where she was. My parents, not knowing how to handle the situation, simply would not respond to me. I was worried and confused, unaware of what was happening or more importantly to me, what happened to my grandmother. I remember walking slowly around the house searching for her, everywhere I could possibly think of I searched, wanting nothing more than to find her. I went from room to room, spending over an hour trying to find her. I made myself believe she was just hiding from me, and that there was no possible way something bad could have happened to someone I had cared so much about. I refused to give up. My mind fixated on finding her and getting back to normal. It was around two hours later when I couldn’t continue searching, it had been the point where negative thoughts started seeping into my childish, optimistic mind. I no longer knew what to do. I became overridden with sadness and despair. The one I cared most about had been ripped from my life, and I remain memoryless from the event of what actually happened. My young age prevented me from comprehending what happened and to retain the memories from the time period. Days past with me in my newly depressed state, I had no idea what happened to the person I cared most about. I recall one evening in particular, it was a sometime in a summer night, I woke from my sleep and it was immensely dark in the room. I heard my quivering voice pierce through the darkness of the night uttering only a single shaky word, “Babciu?” This was the polish word for grandmother, I always called her this when she was still with us. At the time, I had no idea that I had spoke out loud, it seemed like my mind had been asking if she was still out there, not leaving me behind by myself with a family that seemed almost alien to me. I never been close to anyone in my family like I had been with my grandmother, being without her seemed like being in a different family completely.

It had been roughly a year before I had any knowledge of where my grandmother went; I thought of her in my sadness everyday in between the two dates. I just turned five a week before my family visited the cemetery for the first time together. I had never been to any type of cemetery before, so naturally I had mixed feelings on confusion and interest. We walked for a short time before my mother and father stopped in front of a tombstone, where they just stood there for minutes on end. I looked at the stone and being unable to read, questioned it silently. Minutes that seemed like hours passed before I managed to push the words out of mouth, “What does it say?” There had been a long pause before they answered me, only this time, the meaning of the word had stuck to my mind. I finally understood how all the hours in the world would not allow me to find my grandparent. How all the searching was pointless and the answer was there in front of me the entire time. I could not find my grandmother. She had passed away, leaving me alone in the cruelty of our world. The emotions coiled inside of me sprang out and I could no longer control myself, I sat there weeping for what seemed an eternity. It was the last part I remembered from the time, but I still could never recall what had happened that night everything went wrong.

From then on I began straying from the Polish I once spoke fluently, speaking a more fragmented version of the language. It only got worse, to the point of me no longer speaking the language at all and starting with the English I began to learn. Using it reminded me of her, she had not spoken English, so all our conversations would rush into my mind, along with feelings of despair from my loss. I tried so hard to just move on and forget the past, to once again be optimistic like I was as a child. My life had not been the same without her; I became more and more aware of the cruelties and evils that filled the world, that I had been greatly sheltered from in my grandmother’s protection. All these harmful things in life had been magnified to me, when dealing with my loss. I found it much easier to get by when I moved on and pulled myself free of my depressed state of mind. The burden of losing a loved one had been much less tolling, when I started continuing on with my life again, accepting the past to move on to what would become of me.