I had no idea how to react when it happened and I was just trying to feel sympathetic but I later realized the gravity of the situation. The situation had been prolonged for an undetermined amount of time. Everyone was praying for us and hoping for the best but we all knew what would happen in the end. It was the end of my beloved grandmother’s life. She had one of the saddest diseases that you can’t die from, Alzheimer's. I’ve dwelled on the sadness of a disease so horrible to hurt someone so pure and it doesn’t seem to add up, but neither does life. I felt as though I didn’t make the most of my time with her.

It was so long ago and I was so young as me and my mom took a summer to help move her mom who was in the earlier stages of Alzheimer's down to Texas so that we could take care of her more. As time went on her illness grew worse and worse until my mom decided that there was no quality of life since she wasn’t swallowing anymore. About a month went on as her body mass slowly grew less and less. Then one day there was no more; I hadn’t gotten a perception how to react due to me being an adolescent.

Weeks went on planning the funeral. Time passed with missing a wonderful person and grandmother but I feel like I was doing something wrong because I wasn’t exactly sad; I missed her but I didn’t really show it. So I was just shrugging it off and didn’t do much for the next couple of weeks. So when I took my trip to Kansas for her funeral I was trying to avoid thinking about what happened in any capacity but it was just too hard. When the service started I saw the urn arrangement that was put out, then when my Uncle, whom my grandma highly respected, came to read some words about her and the words that described her were more than I had ever known about her in my little time of understanding things.

The whole service I was trying to ‘stay strong’ and hold it back; it was too much to handle and I had to let it go to clear my mind. So when we were sent to the reception my dad came to me and said, ‘It will be okay,’ I knew that it would be but it’s just so hard to put something like that behind yourself where you’re young since you haven't fully matured yet. so then these pictures start coming up onto a slide show and I see all of these wonderful memories that she has had and then I see me with her and I just wept.

This experience was new to me since she was the only person whom I’ve known has passed. It was a life-changing experience that has led me to believe that not everything is sunshine and rainbows, or that bad things aren't always bad things, but most of all has taught me to cherish every moment that I spend with my family and to always make the most of my time on whatever I am doing.