Two years ago, one summer night, my family and I were on the phone with my grandma who had just returned home to Florida after visiting us for a week. My grandma was her usual eccentric yet joyful self telling us every detail about her day and flight home. She had been with us at our house just the night before, the end of a week in which I had to be reminded by my parents to come down from my room and spend more time with her instead of having lengthy Facetime with my friends until all hours. I didn't think anything of saying a quick goodbye, telling her a quick I love you, and giving a brief hug as she left. I look back and wish I had put more care into that goodbye; little did I know that would be the last time I ever got to say goodbye. 

I was sitting in my bedroom on my phone when my mom called me downstairs. Not thinking anything of it, I slowly made my way downstairs assuming they had something somewhat insignificant to discuss, but when I made it downstairs I was met with my family in tears. I knew something terrible had happened. They told me my grandma, who had just been visiting us, had passed away. My world stopped, I couldn’t believe it. No one in my family could have seen it coming. 

The months following her death were just a blur of fighting, crying, and scrambling to figure out what the next steps were. We were so blindsided by the death nobody had time to reflect on and grieve her death. We were more focused on getting all of her affairs in order to attempt to bring life back to normal. Then just as things seemed to be falling into place, we got a call that my other grandma had been admitted to the hospital and was not doing well. We were launched into another tragedy for my family, dealing with the potential of another death was so sudden that we still hadn’t processed and reflected on the first one. 

Even though I recently experienced another death, this felt different. While the first was stressful and more focused on the fallout than the death, this time it felt quieter, more focused on saying goodbye and soaking up every possible moment with my grandmother. My family and I would spend time in the hospital visiting her, bringing gifts and good news to cheer her up and push her to get better. I hoped for the best outcome, but every time I saw her, she seemed drastically worse than the last time. All I could think about was when she wasn't sick, all the nights spent sleeping over at her house playing games and watching funny movies, the happy carefree lunches where she and her Nurse Nicky, would tell us about the crazy things they had seen on their walks through the park. I tried to use these joyful memories to keep hope. I felt as if I had hoped everything would be ok, but as time went on she continued to decline.

Then one day after school the news came, I got called down to see my parent's broken faces as they told me it was terrible, tragic even but something felt different this time; much quieter than the first loss. Maybe it was the time to prepare or deep down I had known the whole time that this was the outcome and had already been beginning to mourn. For the first time in months, I felt like I had time to grieve and reflect on what happened. Through this time I realized that my biggest regret is not using all the valuable time I was given with them.

If there were one thing I learned from all this it would be to appreciate the time you have because you never know when you won't have any time left.