It was 2 years before he died, which was 2018. He had been working on a tree outside of his house. That day was very windy, and he was on a ladder right next to the tree, just slighty touching it. When a gust of wind came by the ladder lost its balance, and it made it tilt, making him fall right on the ground. He was never the same after that. He  constantly got very agonizing headaches, ones that would make you feel like the world is caving in on you, but as hard as you push you can’t stop it. The ones with such force, you can’t see straight. His wife just thought it was a concussion so she gave him headache pills to soothe the pain. It was like that for a whole year. Just until the headache pills weren’t working.

She finally took him to the ER so she could find out why he kept getting headaches. They did multiple scans to find out what was happening to him, to have this many headaches. The news we didn’t want to hear,  news that would make us feel like someone hitting your gut so hard that you can’t stop these feelings  you have from coming out. The news of him having cancer made the gut feeling feel harder than ever.

He was always in and out of the hospital, in and out of surgeries. It got to the point he was just in the hospital and didn’t really come out. He had been in pain and in the ICU for a year, just struggling to live. Like his rope of life was ending. On September 21st 2020, he passed away. When I  heard this the air that filled my lungs felt freezing, like liquid cement  pouring  down my throat. All of us were devastated, it had happened so quickly. He was just alive at my grandparents house. He looked good, he looked fine. 

Just a couple months before he died my dog Tootles died from the same cancer he did. I already lost my dog, now my uncle. People said 2020 was bad because of covid, and it was, but the real bad thing for me was losing these things I treasured most. The people that brought my family together. The people that blocked out the drama and enjoyed the time they had. Even though me and my parents took that pain hard,  we can’t take over the pain my grandpa felt. He took it so hard that everyday he would cry.

When my uncle died, I went over there more,  and he was never the same. My grandfather's eyes were red and mushy. He was never really happy. I know he lost something that he loved so much, but it was like he wasn’t that person anymore. He kept the phone my uncle called from so he would not feel the emptiness that death left him. My aunt always used to say, “You have to remember, you will never recover from this. But you can’t abandon the people you still have, because you're not the only one going through this.”  My whole family took this death hard, but we still come together to remember him. 

Now every year we hold a golf outing to come together to remember the good times and the bad ones. “Life is like a merry-go-round. It goes on but it eventually stops. When it stops and when you get off you never forget the time you had on it.”