"I hope you're going to come because he doesn't have many days to live."
At that moment my heart shattered and I couldn't contain the tears that came flooding down my face. I went ice cold. Shivers were running up and down my spine, making me pull my sweatshirt closer to me. Suddenly my eyes started burning and my vision turned blurry.
I slumped down into the corner of the kitchen, isolated from everything but myself and started crying. The hot tears rolled down my face and dripped off my chin and onto my sweatshirt that was still clutched tightly to me. The salty tears landed on my chapped lips making them burn like a freshly lit fire. I would lick them away before the burning sensation got unbearable but the tears just kept coming.
I thought I had prepared myself for this. Every day for a year I would ask myself, "If he died today how would you react?" I never lost a loved one before and even though he wasn't dead, just hearing that he didn't have many days to live was enough to make my heart shatter. I just sat there clutching my knees to my chest letting the tears, now stain my jeans. The clock kept beating, Tic Tock, Tic Tock. I let my sobs come down to heavy breathing, then I listened again. This time I heard the soft trotting of my dog, Mia. No sooner than I heard this, her big, black head popped up in front of me. "Hi, Mia," I murmured. She looked at me with her soft, brown eyes and then started licking the salty tears off of my face. I gave a soft giggle and patted her on the head. She gave me one last lick as if trying to say, "It's going to be okay." I have never cried for more than 10 minutes, unless I was extremely upset. This is the second time I have sobbed for over half an hour. That was when I was 5 and my dog maestro died.
My dad pulled into the driveway. "MAESTRO'S HOME!" I exclaimed while running around the whole house. I dashed outside into the driveway barefoot, stepping on sharp pebbles, making me wince in pain. My dad stepped out of his truck and started trudging towards me, dreading the time when he would have to tell me the horrible news.
"Daddy where's Maestro?" I asked.
"I don't know," he joked. I didn't find this humorous.
"No, really daddy." I didn't want to wait any longer.
"Maestro didn't feel very well, he was very sick and he's in heaven now. He's running around, having fun, and he's not sick anymore." I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I started crying and ran into my room and hoped it was all just a night mare.

I wiped the tears from my eyes and felt a soft vibration in my pocket. "Who's calling me?" I wondered. I took out my cell phone and looked at the bright blue screen. It was my friend Amanda. I answered the phone and instantly she noticed something was wrong. She asked if I would tell her what happened and I finally agreed. I explained what my mom said and a fresh batch of tears came rolling down my cheeks. She told me to think of ice cream, just trying to cheer me up. I laughed and started to feel a little better.

Half an hour later my dad picked me up and we headed to Warde High School to pick my sister up from lacrosse practice. We got in the car and headed towards "Bridgeport Hospital". We parked the car and got into the elevator. I couldn't help but giggle at the thought of my grandpa's face as we picked up his dinner. He hated the cafeteria food; he was used to making his delicious home-made pasta. Now he was forced to eat white blobs of what must be potatoes. We had reached the seventh floor and started heading towards my Grandpa's room. A nurse stopped us and pulled my dad to the side.
The nurse said, "I'm sorry but Joe passed away a couple of minutes ago." I could hear her but I pretended I didn't.
"No, I thought. She mixed up the people; he was supposed to get better! My Mom would've called, wouldn't she? Then I understood why, her heart had been shattered into a million pieces and these pieces were in the process of being collected."
My dad came over to me and my sister Sara and informed us of the news. We stopped. We listened. We heard. We cried. We shuffled down the hall. We sat. We cried. I sat in an armchair and sobbed. Ten minutes later I was still crying when I got a picture message from my sister. I opened the message and it was a picture of my Grandpa. My eyes started burning even more and more tears flooded down my face.
My Grandpa had diabetes and dementia and whenever we were leaving the hospital, we would say goodbye and he would say, "See you in heaven." I never thought he meant it or that it would happen so soon. I always assumed that he would snap out of it, and go back to the way everything used to be, like it was a couple of years ago. I wanted to go back to his house and have him cook for me again.
"How could I think he was going to get better? He's been like this for a year now! It wouldn't be possible. I just told myself that because I didn't want to believe the truth. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard if I hadn't told myself he was going to get better." I never knew I could feel so gloomy and empty inside.

At my Grandpa's funeral, it was a calm day, not a cloud in the sky, no wind at all. All of a sudden, when everyone was about to put their flowers on the casket, a huge gust of wind blew. That was the only gust of wind through the whole ceremony. We believe that it was my Grandpa, watching us from his kitchen in the sky. My heart felt like a ten pound weight inside me. Sorrow. It means to be truly heartbroken, but even through my pain, there's always going to be a place in my heart for him.