In October 2014 two days before I was meant to go back to school, mum got a phone call from dad saying that granddad Hendry had been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the bladder.
Saying that I cried when I found out would be the biggest lie of the century! I was a blubbering mess gripping on to her for dear life as I mumbled,
“Will he get chemo?”
“Why didn’t they pick it up earlier? Tumours don’t just pop up overnight!”
I kept mumbling incoherent pleas until my noni confirmed my worst fear.
When I spoke to dad later on in the day he told me that ironically granddad was happy he had a terminal tumour inside him, because at least he now knew what was wrong with him.
Christmas break was when I saw him for the first time after the diagnosis; he’d lost a fair bit of weight. He
…show more content…
But when mum got in from work she had a slightly saddened face. She then proceeded to tell me that the reason she wanted her number was to say that they had stopped granddad’s medication/treatment completely.
I called on Sunday night so I could speak to granddad for a couple minutes. I told him that I got a place on the history trip; I’d gotten some pretty decent test scores and also filled him in on the football and rugby scores.
On Tuesday 17th at 4:00PM the cancer that now took hold of his body finally stopped his heart.
I was down at Eyemouth a few days before the funeral, I had only cried once and I was completely fine the day of the funeral ‘til I walked into the church and “You’ll never walk alone” started playing on the organ – that’s when I finally started to cry.
This experience has changed me in a way that is hard to explain if you haven’t lost anyone or see someone in the state that I have, but one way I found comfort was when I read “Visiting hour” by Norman MacCaig as I found it perfectly describes how it feels to lose someone and have no power to help
Dealing with the grief of a loved one is not an easy task. Only time can heal the pain of someone you’re used to be around is suddenly gone. When my uncle passed it was the first experience with death in which I was old enough to understand. Nobody really close to my family had passed away before, so I was unprepared with the pain and sadness that came with it. I also thought about it but I never really thought of something like this happening to me. I wish I had spent more time with my uncle, but I never thought about it because I never thought he would passing away so quickly. This is always why it is good for every day to show your family how much you love and appreciate them because you never know when their last day on earth is.