Carrot, An Egg, Or A Coffee Bean

Something in my stomach was telling me I would not see him. I did not tell anyone this though just in case I was wrong. But I was right I always have a way of knowing these things. He heard a knock on the door. A feeling of relief washed over everyone except me. The person at the door was the only policeman in town and Frank the town leader. My mom could not keep it together. It is a hard sight to see when your mom is sad. The person you look up to when you are a kid is crying. That can mess a 6 year old kid up. The time that would take place next went from 0 to 100 so fast. We cremated my dad's body and moved. My mom picked texas because it had good schools. We did not have any family though and sometimes I felt as if that was a bad decision. My mother would not tell me how my dad died until I was 16. Not living without a dad can be hard. When it is at the crucial age of 6. You need a good role model. My brother became my dad if he liked it or not. Everything that happened in my life seemed like a blurr. The fact my dad was dead never really hit me. But it hit me so hard and so fast. It was like a brick wall. I started almost failing my classes, sleeping all the time, eating a lot, not exercising, moping all the time. I still suffer from it today. Back then though I wanted to die. But it is so much better. I learned that I held my mom accountable and my dad for

My great-grandmother was the matriarch of my family. When I was in seventh grade, around thirteen years old, she passed away due to breast cancer. This misfortune created an extremely difficult time for me because, not only was I adjusting to the environment of junior high, but many other issues were occurring in my life; this was the third death that I was having to deal with. Unfortunately, one of the previous deaths (that I was still trying to hurdle through and come to terms with), had occurred almost exactly a year before the passing of my great-grandmother. The second death that I had gone through occurred only one or two months before my great-grandma has passed. All of this turmoil created numerous internal conflicts for me, but also taught me a key lesson to keep note of, for the rest of my life.

Losing a grandparent at the age of 11 and younger was hard enough but losing one at the age of thirty-five hurt just as much. My grandmother is still living, I wasn't as close to them as I was to my other grandparents but there was still a relationship that was built throughout my lifetime. I had the chance to visit my grandfather while he was in the hospital. Regretfully when I went to see him he was too ill to have a conversation with, but my grandmother reassured me that it was ok because he knew I was there. My grandfather was cremated, this was the first time I attended a funeral where I saw a box of ashes holding someone who I loved. His funeral consisted our close family members and my grandfather's remains were placed in a mausoleum. His death affected all of us in one way or another, this was the first time I saw my dad cry. It makes me sad that he is no longer with us but glad he is no longer

My maternal aunt gathered us together and we all sat on the couch. She turned to my mother and told us she had cancer. I looked at my aunt and I did not know what to say or how to respond. Three months later, my father received a phone call from his sister telling him that my pregnant cousin, Elizabeth, was diagnosed with leukemia and had to give birth to her premature baby. She and I grew up in the same house in Arizona and what hurt me the most was not being able to be with her during this difficult time. When we went to visit her in Arizona, my dad told us before entering the hospital room that he did not want us to cry in front of her. I was scared to enter. I did not know what to say to her but I knew I had to be strong. We stayed there for the holiday season but we never celebrated the holidays, that was too

I have lost my grandpa and have not gotten over the idea of it. When I was in the sixth grade, my grandfather was very sick; he could barely walk. While my grandmother and some other family members went uptown for some household things, food, and medication, I was told to take care of him. Yet, I wanted to play with my friends outside. He told me to go ahead and play, but for some reason I just got mad and slammed the door and left. Around nighttime, I seen an ambulance pull up to my grandparents’ house.

My grandmother, who is the mother of my mom, passed away due to heart failure at the age of 87. Since I was 6 or 7 she had been living in our house. The reason for that was, my grandfather, that I was named after passed away a year before I was born, so she was alone, and she was starting to get old. Since she lived with us for so many years, she had been a very important figure in my life. I can honestly say that she was like a 3rd parent for me, and losing her, made me fell horrible and helpless. I witnessed how real death is because of her passing. Combined with puberty, my grief caused me to become depressed for a long time. As I’m looking back it sounds really extreme, but there were some days that I did not even leave the bed thinking that there was no point to our existence. Thanks to some psychological counselling however, I was able to overcome that mental

The moment I realized that my dad was not going to be in my life was when I wrote him “that letter.” My dad had went to jail, and at that time I still fought for my relationship with my dad. In the letter I basically informed him that everything was going to be alright. God was going to bring him out of every situation, and many more words of encouragement. Our relationship had been somewhat okay, I visited him in jail and of course you know how things go with certain people. They tell you that whenever they get out, they’re going to be a better person, he’s going to continuously be a part of me and my brothers lives. So what do you think happened? That shit never happened. I think that’s what had hurt the most. Because I literally gave so much into that letter, and for you to continuously lie to me and tell me that you’re going to do something and you don’t is pretty fucked up. Because even when people were beginning to give up on him, I was the only one being positive and trying to give him a chance and be there for him. I just don’t understand how you can just look someone in the face and feed them all this bullshit and then you don’t make the effort to make anything happen. But I guess that’s why it’s called

My dad pulled me out of the chapel and told me it was okay to cry, that the only way to get through something was to accept what had happened, and that if that made me cry, it was okay. Everybody sees crying as a weakness but it is not. Crying is a coping method for me, and many other people that i know. After the ceremony, many people left and went home. As i collected myself, I watched the leaves fall off the trees and to the ground as we followed the hearse that carried my great grandmother inside of it. We got out of the car and walked to the burial, where everybody stood and said their last words about Nannie. I stood in between my dad and my grandma, she reached into her pocket and handed me the cross that i had given to my great grandmother. I set it down in her right hand, remembering her telling me how much she loved her cross and how she felt that it would always keep her safe.

The obstacles that I went through was having to not think about my dad’s death and also when my mom got sick and she had to have 4 surgeries because she had arthritis.I was only 5 years old when my dad died he was out and saw his friend getting beat up and went to go get the guy off his friend and the other guy had a machete and stabbed my dad with it. That night my mom got a call from the police saying that my dad has been killed. I know I was young, but it was hard trying to get over the fact that I don’t have a dad anymore because of some guy who thought it was right to kill him. It was tough on my family we couldn’t get over it he died on my sister’s birthday that midnight. I tried a lot of things to forget about my dad’s death, but it just couldn’t help me. When i started getting older and older I just told myself that he is in a better place and that he is watching over us and not to

One of my favorite parts about my granddad particularly was how he always had something inspiring to say to me every day to keep me going. Sometimes it feels like he’s still inspiring me today while in heaven. I believe I would be struggling more if I didn’t have him around when I was little. He was the only father that was there for me when needed most. I miss him all the time, but

In 2011, I loss my closest family member, my uncle, the most perfect father figure. The call was devastating. He had been battling cancer all of his life. One year it was gone and then back again. He was going through a war with his body, this illness. He was 47 when he passed. I never will understand why God will take the most joyous, heart felt, loving people. But I could never question God. It was simply his time. Now who would I look up too? That was my war. Watching my Uncle Ernie have to go to treatment after treatment was tiring not for only him but for me. When he was drained I felt drained, I fed from his energy. When my uncle passed I felt my world was over. I couldn 't believe it, I didn 't want to believe it. His war was over and my war had just started.

Losing a father sounds like a tragic event, but it’s even more impossible when it happens to you. I don’t remember much about my dad’s appearance, just that he had jet black hair and eyes. I always saw him as kind and caring. My mom and dad split when I was 5, and she moved us away from him. He was always caught up in drinking and doing drugs, but he was always loving to my siblings and I. He was homeless and I spent years not thinking about him, but when he died, everything changed. Losing my dad, no matter how involved he was in my life, made me realize how quickly life can change.

I clearly remember the day I found out about my granddad's passing. I was at school. It was a normal, joyful day. My dad was planning on picking me up, but instead my friend's mom picked me up. He would not tell me why, but I did not think much of it. I remember the car ride to my house. My friend's mom would not tell me why she was driving me home; all she told me was, "Just know, Ryan, that we will be here for you no matter

Once, in the first week following his passing, I came through my front door and looked at the area where he would usually be sitting or lying. I called for him with the foolish notation that he would appear and come running to me. But of course, he did not. Then, I walked past his empty food bowls and tears started running down my face. It was a shattering reminder that he was gone and never coming back.

My great grandfather Bob Howell, who we called Papa Bob, was one of the greatest men ever in my opinion. He taught us many things, from how to treat one another to how to get through life accomplishing many things. Not too long ago he had experienced a fall. My cousins were outside doing yard work and had came in to get a drink, when the youngest heard someone. She saw papa Bob laying on the ground of his bathroom floor, and ran to get her sister. I got a call from her saying that she couldn 't get a hold of any of our parents. I started to panic and called my parents over and over until my dad answered. Papa Bob made it to the hospital, had scans done and got checked upped, but they said he was fine. As months went by he was never quite himself again, I blamed it on the fall secretly, but the doctors never found anything. It was getting worse and worse until he was put in the hospital. I knew his time was coming and I tried to spend time with him and listen to his stories when I could.