“ What happened, Grandma? What happened?” I recall almost chasing my grandmother around the house and up and down the hallway as she and my grandfather frantically ran about. It was like watching cars on a freeway, every one passing so quickly like blurred images. As my grandpa passed me again, he said hastily,

“Jeffery killed himself!”

Just seconds prior to this it was just as it had always been on a Saturday afternoon at Grandma’s--Grandpa watched TV leisurely, puffing a cigar; Grandma cleaned the already cleaned house; and I dressed my Barbie dolls in the clothes my mother had just made for them. This is when the telephone rang and the chaos began.

Death. I never thought about death. You don’t when you’re seven. It never occurs to you that someday your loved ones will leave this Earth. You think you’re the only one that gets older on your birthday and that your parents and grandparents stay the same. I used to go to Uncle Jefffery and Aunty Sachan’s house every week after church with Grandma. I helped Aunty cook lunch; I’d rub a crayon over a piece of paper on the floor so the tile designs showed through; I made Uncle Jeffrey play patron and waitress so many times he must have been sick of it. He would call from his room, “Where is my food? It’s taking so long.” I would walk in the room, with “food” lined up on both arms, which were really Aunty Sachan’s tiny baskets of flowers and other knickknacks from her miniature cabinet.

“Here you are sir. Can I get you anything else?” I would always say.

“No thank you,” he’d reply and pretend he was eating. I’d leave the room for about a minute then return to check on him,

“Would you like to order anything else?”

“Oh, I’m so full I can’t eat anymore,” he’d say while rubbing his belly.

“Okay, thank you. Come again.” With that I’d clear the dishes off his bed and return them to their place so we could start all over again.

This was life. It was good. Why would anything change...ever?

Life did change on that day forever. It now included death. The canvas of my mind had been beautifully painted with warm yellow rays of sunshine, rolling green hills, cool fresh water streams, sweet smelling flowers in different shades of bright colors, and the images and sounds of love, laughter and safety. But on this day, at this instant, it was as if some faceless being had walked up to that perfect painting carrying an open bucket of cold blacker than black paint with drips running down the sides and violently plunged a tight, cupped, bared hand into the color and flung it at the canvas, covering it with large round splats and long sharp streaks. I could no longer hear the sounds of innocence and happiness coming from my masterpiece.

It was a shock that stunned and paralyzed me for a time. Fear of loss and being alone followed. Visions of some catastrophic thing happening, taking the lives of all my family and leaving me alone filled my mind and made my heart race. What would happen to me? Where would I go? Would I live alone where no one would ever find me? Would I end up living on the streets? I would surely die out there. What would my death be like? I was so afraid of pain. Death must be physically painful.

Accepting the fact that someone was gone was impossible.

It wasn’t even so much the grief of missing someone and wanting them to come back, but rather the concept of here one day, gone the next. It was the knowledge that twenty four hours before this we were all going about our business as usual, unaware of what the coming day would bring and how drastically our lives would be impacted. Didn’t we know somewhere deep within us that something huge was upon us? Why didn’t we know? How could we not know? Did Jeffrey know? Why did he do it? Something must have been terribly wrong. I could’ve helped him. He would be here, right now, if I was given the chance to help him. If I called him on the phone, he would be unable to answer. The next time I went to Auntie’s house, he would not be there to play patron and waitress with me.
I couldn’t make the transition.

Since that day twenty-three years ago, I have experienced the deaths of other family members including Grandpa and Aunty Sachan. My perception of death and dying has traveled the curves and turns in the road of life. I have observed and analyzed and compared the ways others perceive death to help me decide what my beliefs will be. Today I see it as neither good nor bad. Death just happens, and it’s supposed to happen. I don’t spend my time worrying about it and trying to control it as if I could ever prevent it from happening to myself or anyone else. Instead, I choose to be thankful for the time I had with my uncle. I believe it’s true that quality of life is much more important than quantity, and physical life is not something to cling to but something to do as fully as possible and to constantly let go of. Some will breathe for just a few moments while others will watch an entire century go by. I don’t know when it will be time for anyone around me to leave whether it be my four year old son or my eighty-seven year old grandma. This not knowing is priceless, for it teaches me to spend each day on the things that are most important in life.

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