My aunt Sylvia was the nicest lady who ever lived. She was a widow and never had children, but she had this French poodle that she loved as though it were her own daughter. She wasn't my real aunt but I loved her so much that I called her that. Ever since I can remember, she used to come to my house and play canasta with my cousins and me. She also used to bring us the candy parents never let us have. She was in her sixties, but by the way she acted, you would have never been able to tell. On weekends she always went dancing and came back talking about all the guys who asked for her phone number. Whenever we held family gatherings, she would make sure to bring her most comfortable shoes, so she could dance the night away. When I was about ten-years-old, she became very ill. She had always been diabetic, but this time, it had really taken over her life.
It was Sunday afternoon when we received a phone call from my uncle mike saying she had collapsed at home and had been rushed to the hospital; her leg was to be amputated. My family and I immediately left the house to go see her. We arrived thinking she would be devastated, but somehow wasn't. She was very strong, extremely religious, and believed that everything happened for a reason. She believed that whatever happened to her was because God wanted it that way.
Shortly after, I got my first real boyfriend. His name was Lauren and I liked him very much. A month after we began dating, my aunt was hospitalized; she was in intensive care for two weeks. My family and I went to see her everyday. The doctors didn't give her much hope at all. Seeing her lying on the hospital bed simply broke my heart. Lauren was very supportive of me during that time. Once again, my aunt recovered quickly, only this time she had to have dialysis three times per week.
A few months went by and my aunt Sylvia still required dialysis. Her entire chest had turned purple and she looked much older, but she was still the same happy, energetic person she had always been. That Tuesday afternoon Lauren called. We had been talking for about twenty minutes when he asked me if I wanted to go roller-blading. Right as he asked me, my mother asked me if I would go visit my aunt Sylvia. She didn't seem very sick, so I decided to go roller-blading with Lauren instead. The next day I went to school as usual, but when I came back home, my parents and my sister were all in the kitchen crying. My aunt Sylvia had passed away.
To this day, I still regret going roller-blading with Lauren. Aunt Sylvia was so strong and willing to live, how could she have died? If I had only gone to visit her that day, I could have seen her one last time and told her how much she meant to me.