Personal Narrative: Miss Me But Let Me Go

Miss Me but Let Me Go was the poem that my grandmother carried in her wallet, and I now carry it in my heart. As a gleeful eleven year old, I had no awareness that my life was about to drastically change, the day I found out my Grandma Charlene was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. My dad and I went to the hospital to visit her on January 18th, 2011. She seemed very weak, which wasn’t normal for her. It wasn’t pneumonia, but something worse, stage four lung cancer. From the time of diagnosis to the time of her death was less than thirty days. In those four weeks I saw her at her best and her worst. One quality that never changed was her strong will, fighting hard to the end. February 16th, 2011 was a normal day, as my mom dropped
my brother and I off at school and my dad was at work (so I assumed). The ride home this day was a little different as my mom turned left out of the school parking lot rather than right like she always did. I immediately asked where we were going and she said, “Grandma Charlene has started the dying process,” Never have I been so heart broken, because my best friend was leaving me. Five hours passed, family was saying their final goodbyes and then at 8:26pm she was gone. Grandma Charlene was the most passionate person I had ever met. Not once did she ever put herself before her family. When someone needed her, she was always there for them, even if they didn’t deserve her empathy. She never gave up on people, which is something special. One of my best commemorations was going line dancing. Every Wednesday we would go to lunch and then to the Wheat Ridge Senior Center to go line dancing. I appreciated spending time together. She was one of the most compassionate persons I have ever known. Moreover, she was generous and patient. After her death, I matured as a person: I was no longer an eleven year old child. I became a stronger person and changed my priorities. I recognized that I couldn’t sit around and feel sorry for myself, I needed to continue with my life. Grandma would not want me to mourn her passing like that, she’d want me to remember all the fun times we shared. Additionally, I began to change my priorities, I learned that you should never take anyone in your life for granted, and that your most valued time should be spent with the ones you love. My relationship with my parents changed the most. I started talking to and spending more time with them. My mom transitioned from my mom to my best friend, she is the one person I could always rely on to vent about my problems as well as my emotions. Additionally, my relationship with my dad also grew. I knew he was going through a lot with the death of his mother, because it impacted us both emotionally, I understood his emotions. We had both lost our mentor, but most of all our best friend. The people we surround ourselves with characterize who we are and how we act. Personally, I feel there may not be a single moment of epiphany when, all of a sudden, I became an adult. I believe maturity and adulthood come about over years, nevertheless, through learning experiences. The death of my Grandmother may not have been my transition from childhood to adulthood, yet it was an experience that helped pave my path to adulthood.