My First Grade Legs Could Carry Me

My first day of the second grade, I knew no one except the teacher and my younger brother. Kindergarten and first grade had been easy enough, but I was scared of the upcoming year. The only thing I knew about being the new kid was that it hadn’t panned out too great for Addie from the American Girl books. Mrs. Henson’s class was fairly quiet throughout the day, for most kids were nervous or tired. We neared the end of the day and I was ecstatic over the fact that hadn’t made a complete fool of myself. I hadn’t met anyone yet, but I thought that that would be a challenge for another day. Unfortunately, that’s not what Mrs. Henson had in mind. She sent us all out to recess with a grin plastered on her face and with me practically kicking

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.

I remember the first day I walked into my kindergarten class, I clenched my mother’s hand with all my might to prevent her from letting go. The kids around me, whom I supposed were my classmates, had long let go of their mother’s had and were playing together, and even as a five year old, at that point I felt like an outsider. I pleaded my mom to not leave but my attempts failed as I found myself alone yet surrounded by complete strangers. As I stood in the center of the room while pushing back my tears and eyeing my mother make her way out the door, I heard the teacher call my name. I timidly walked towards the spot on the yellow carpet she was signaling at for me to sit on. I heard Mrs. Ross’s soothing voice but no matter how much I concentrated

I asked my mom “what’s wrong,” she replied with a sorrowful “your Aunt Lisa is in trouble, we must leave now.” The worst part of all of this was my Aunt Lisa’s son was with us, Matthew. He did not know what to think or believe. No one knew the world would slowly start shattering beneath all of us that morning. We drove to her house, we saw ambulances and police cars driving by, that did not help our nerves at all. We finally arrived at her apartment, we never thought all of those emergency vehicles would be going there. My brother and I stay in the car since I was only eight and he was only eleven. My mom and cousin run into the apartment hoping to only find my Aunt had fallen and is unconscious, or she is passed out drunk, just let it be something that is not permanent. What they come to find is that my Aunt is laying on the floor, unconscious, but cold as ice. It was not from someone killing her, or us getting there too late. She had died twenty-four minutes before that phone

As I stepped into the mud room to take off my bright pink rainboots, I knew something was not normal. As I glided onto the sleek wood floors to grab a crunchy after-school snack, I hear my mom descend down the carpeted stairs slowly, becoming aware that this will not be a normal “how was your day at school” conversation. I raced to the cabinet to grab my fix of Goldfish and I sat down on the floor to get a little snuggle time with my dog before my world was turned upside-down.

I went to my living room to ask my mom a question, to see she wasn’t there. I asked my brother “where’s mom?” and he replied with “shes at the hospital, grandpa got burnt.” I would never have expected “grandpa got burnt” to be as severe as it was. I remember my mom coming home around two in the morning. I got up and out of bed to ask some questions. She said “I don’t wanna talk about it right now. Pack some stuff up, we’re going to Waterloo tomorrow.” So I listened and packed up a bag.

It was early in the morning, and I had just woken up because I hear voices and objects being moved around in my grandma’s kitchen. I got up from the bed and made my way down the hallway straight to the kitchen. Once I entered the kitchen I saw all of my aunts with my grandma kneading the corn flour. I just stood there by the wooden door and watched as my aunts would laugh and talk to each other while the kneaded the corn flour. It was a beautiful sight to see because of the sunlight that was coming in from the window was hitting their faces and making it look like they were glowing. I started to look around the medium size room and saw the big dining table in the middle of the kitchen leaving little space to walk around properly.

At 4:30 am, my alarm went off; I was more tired than ever. I rolled over stepping onto the wood floor. I walked to the bathroom feeling as if I could collapse and fall back into my deep sleep. After my shower, I went back into the snug, little room I was calling home for the time being at my grandparent’s house. I was at my grandparents house due to the fact that my dad and Stacy were already in the Dominican Republic. I packed my last few belongings and crawled back into the bed to fall asleep for a few minutes. I assumed that ten minutes had passed when I remember hearing my grandparents talking about how we had to leave soon. My grandma came in asking us what we had wanted for breakfast. Mickenzie and I told her we weren’t hungry and got out of the warm cozy bed to get in the car. After changing, we went out to the kitchen to say bye to our grandma, seeing that there wasn’t room for her in the car. She gave us a huge, tight bear hug telling us to be safe.

I was riding the school bus back to the closest stop to my house, Trail Wind Elementary School. It was quite a large elementary school, a beige color, with a sharp maroon outline. Then again, everything in Boise was large, from the mountains to the sky. Even though Trail Wind was closer, this bus was returning from Collister Elementary, 45 minutes across the city. It was a small school, but a very good one, one of the three schools in the nation with an advanced curriculum program. Since it was small, almost all of my friends rode the same bus, so I could always count on an interesting bus ride. Today was no exception. But it definitely wasn’t going to be a normal day.

My grandma had survived a hard life, and yet managed to raise four responsible, well-educated, and successful children. All this she did while working as a respected psychiatric nurse and a state mental health board member. Although she had had and was still overcoming trials in life, I always knew she would be there and cared about me and my life. As my brother and I grew older and were unable to visit my grandparents as often as we

The school day did not start out as the normal routine and I was not used to this. I came in the classroom, set my backpack in my cubbie, and the teacher was watching the television screen. I cannot recollect what my teacher told the class about the events. Either I was too young to remember what she said or I was not paying attention. After everyone settled down, Mrs. Scholar began the school day. I remember some kids were leaving school. Their parents came and picked them up after just dropping them off an hour ago. Some of my classmates did not come to school that day at all. I

In October of 2016, my grandma passed away from a hard battle with cancer. My grandma was my rock, the person who always pushed me to be better, the person who was always encouraging me to keep going, and the person who inspired me the most. During the battle, I experienced a lot of adversity. Whether it was school or cross country meets, that feeling never seemed to go away.

When I departed school that beautiful Spring day, I had no idea what was in store for me. After another lengthy, stale day, I graciously wandered out of the school building and was seeking for my father’s car, which was parked on the edge of the street. He rolled down the window and said, “I have a surprise for you. Hop in the backseat.” I was extremely eager to find out what the surprise was, so I kept making wild guesses while he repeatedly answered, “You’ll just need to wait and see.”

The phone rang again. Hoping for good news, yet again I was disappointed. It was my mom; she said she was following our pastor to my grandmother’s house. She said, “We are going to tell Grandma he’s gone”. I knew this would be one of the hardest things to do; it was her birthday after all. The three of us jumped in the car. We drove up to Grandma’s house. I remember Tosha running into the house and falling into her arms. Everyone tried to pull themselves together, but how could this be? This had never happened to us before. The wheel was broken.

Both my parents burst through the doors, looking slightly concerned. “Mehak, why are you screaming?” My mom questioned. My eyes started to get watery, thinking of all the terrible possibilities, and I got a feeling in my gut that something was wrong. “Grandpa... H-he...w-were t-talking a-and h-he started c-coughing a-and the l-line w-went d-dead.” I stuttered, not knowing what to think. My dad flew out of the room, probably to contact my grandma about what was going on.