I was at my brother's house because my parents were in the
Bahamas for their twenty-fifth anniversary; even though they
weren't married for that long, they have been together for
twenty-five years. I guess my dad figured they might not get
a chance to go anywhere big like the bahamas agian, so since
they were close to twenty-five years, they decided to
celebrate it then, so I was staying at my brother's till
they retuned home.
    Well, I was buried in a deep concentration about the
conversation I was in with a person online. It was about
eight thirty at night in the middle of the week, during the
summer. My concentration got broken along with the silence
of the house, when the tink of the dooprbell echoed through
the house. I found it strangely odd for someone to be
ringing the doorbell at this time at night, but I decided to
get upto see who it was anyway. To my concerned surprise I
found my grandma standing outside the door. She was sort of
out of breath, and you could tell something wasn't right by
the crackling in her voice. the first thing she said was,
"You might want to sit down."
The very fist thing that bolted into my head and out of my
mouth was, "what happend to grandpa!!!"
     what she said after that was the hardest thing for my
ears to listen to, the words that came crackling  out of her
like a bad connection were seven of the worst words that I
possibly have ever heard. "Your father just had a hard
attack" I knew that this time he didn't make it. After that
everything around me became a blur, nothing moved and I felt
like I was just floating in totally black abyss. Fom that
moment on it felt like
nothing really mattered; I couldn't even hear the words of
my sister-in-law, or feel her arms wrapped around me. At
that moment, at that time, nothing really existed other then
the flooding of tears in my eyes and the ache in my heart.
It was as though all life stopped...
    Out of the black abyss I heard my three year old
nephew's tiny voice, with all the innocents of a child, say,
"why are you guys crying?" those words sounded so innocent,
but yet so real and heart filled. It made my heart stop
aching for myself, but for him for not having as much time
with my father and knowing him. I am sure that he will
barely even remember his grandpa and how wonderful he was.
He could make  frowns turn upside down and chase gray clouds
out of any stormy sky. He was the most positive person I
have known; he always could look at the good in anything.
  After my nephew T.J. said those words, I stopped thinking
about my problems so much but thinking about others. Knowing
how strong my mother had to be when he passed out from the
heart attack and died right in front of her eyes. She was
just really lucky that they were staying at  a family's
vacation house with people that knew their way around and
how things worked in the Bahamas. I knew I would miss him,
and that it would be hard, but I knew that I could always
find his essence buried in my heart.
     It was almost two weeks before his body was returned to
the United States, and about another day or two before we
could manage to have his wake and funeral. So it was like
torture to the family to have to wait so long to have the
wake and fueral, before the real grieving process could
start. I never though I would have to go through most of my
major events in life without my father to be there to
celebrate moving into a new house, my high school
graduation, and walking me down the isle. I know he is
probably happier where ever he is for he has had a lot of
health problems in the last few years and I would rather
know that he is a peace then see him in pain.
    Everyone has their own time to come and their own time
to go and  this was his time to go. As I believe, grain
isn't grain till it is planted, harvested and eaten and a
human isn't a human till he is born, lived and returns to
the ground. Everything has its own process and death for a
human is part of it.