There I sat, not truly understanding the current situation. Dead….? It seemed unreal. These sorts of things only happen to people in movies or on the news, right? For my eight-year old mind, understanding a concept such as death was impossible. For people to die…..that meant I would never seem them again! My brain tried its best to process everything as my grandmother drove towards our destination.
I had been pulled from class early, completely unaware of the current tragedy my stepfather and mother were facing. When the news was revealed to me, I harbored no sadness, no pain. I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t believe it to be true. So there I sat, completely silent whilst being driven to my step-grandmother’s house. Time seemed to pass quickly, and I was soon stepping from the blue Grant Caravan and walking into the house. Almost instantly family members rushed to me, expecting me to be sad. They were expecting me to be crying, to be showing some sort of pain. I conveyed nothing of the sort, for I still did not fully understand the situation.
A week passed, and the funeral came and went. The reality of everything came crashing down on me that day. I stood by my mother, uncontrollably crying. One so young shouldn’t have to deal with death, but not everyone is that lucky.
The person who had died was my older step-sister Melanie Murr. We had been rather close. She was always kind to me. She seemed to always take my side when her father or my mother was mad at me. Melanie embodied kindness. I realized, even at that young age, that I should start appreciating my family more, but it wasn’t a realization that came to me all at once.
Two years passed, and my younger sister Rebecca was now the age of three. Night had already fallen, and we were preparing to go to bed. It was then that I noticed something. My sister was not in the room at all, nor was she in the living room or kitchen. I ask my mother about it, and she said she thought my sister was with me. I explained that she was not and that’s when panic took over. My mother instantly started to call Rebecca’s name. The cries became more frantic as time progressed and no response was heard. My emotional stability was torn asunder by intense fear and worry. She couldn’t be gone…..but why was she not responding? Had she left through the door? Had she been kidnapped? Questions flowed through my mind as I aided in the search. Closets, cabinets, even the outdoors; nothing yielded the desired result. My mother was now pushed into a rage, screaming my sister’s name, tears running from her eyes. That’s when Rebecca appeared in the hallway. The three-year old girl was pulled into a hug by my now-relieved mother. I thought I had lost another sister, and soon I was crying out of relief and joy that Rebecca was fine. It turned out that my sister had been hiding behind a pile of clothes in my parent’s closet. She had no idea that she was worrying us, for it was just a simple game of hide and seek to her.
This pulled my appreciation for my family into near paranoia. Any small thing that seemed even slightly bad would throw me into a fit of worry. I became overly protective for awhile, angering my parents when I would openly voice my disapproval of their parenting methods. A question had started to arise in my mind. Appreciation and closeness is good, correct? Yet it results in increased pain when a loved one is lost. Would it be better not to become close to family so that parting would be less difficult? This question haunted my mind for years to come. Once again, I began to regain a feeling of complete security. Nothing could happen to my family. Nothing could take them away or do anything to hurt me. It just wasn’t something that would happen to me, only to people on the news or in the movies.
That same stupid mindset stuck with me until October 14th, 2008. Marching band practice had just ended. We had been busy preparing for the football game that was scheduled for that Friday. I crossed Hillsdale and started to walk to my piano lesson. The house where I took lessons was only across the street. I continued following the path until I remember something rather important. Lessons had been canceled for a week, and the walking I had done turned out to be pointless. Even so, I didn’t have my cell phone with me, so I continued to my piano teacher’s house. After knocking on the door and asking to use the phone, I dialed my grandmother’s cell phone number. The call was supposed to be routine. Call my grandmother, have her pick me up, then go home. I was completely unprepared for how different it would actually be.
The phone rang over and over again, and I was prepared to just hang up and try to contact my mother instead. Seconds before taking action, my grandmother answered. The first thing I heard was her loud crying. She started to speak incoherently, and I had to ask her to repeat what she said many times. I was already uneasy over the fact that she was crying, but fear gripped me when I understood the word “died” through her sobs. Died?! Who had died? I set to asking that very question. “Grandma, calm down! Who died?”
She tried her best to regain her composure and uttered a single word. “Alex….”
I instantly went numb. What? That couldn’t be right. Not my little cousin…..he was only five years old…..nothing like that could happen in my family, I was almost sure of it. My first thought was that she may be over-exaggerating, as she normally does in crisis situations. It wasn’t until I received a ride from my grandfather that I knew it to be the truth. I remained emotionally frozen as the day progressed. Details came in bits. I found out that Alex had died in a car crash while riding with his grandmother on his other side of the family. Even so, I didn’t react. The information seemed nearly pointless to know.
The next week moved along slowly. I didn’t feel the pain everyone else was feeling. I was so sure that I was unaffected. I wanted to believe that I had never been close to him at all. I was determined not to allow my younger cousin’s death to affect me. So, I didn’t. Crying and sorrow surrounded me at my home, while I stood there, almost completely emotionless.
October 21st came more quickly than I had expected. It was the day of Alex’s funeral. I avoided looking at the body for a long time. My mind still could not accept that he was gone. My reluctance to accept the truth was rooted in the fact that I had realized I was a lot closer to my cousin than I originally allowed myself to believe. I had never really cherished my moments with him. It just seemed like there was no possible way he would be taken away.
My realization became complete at that point. I had always not really cared about the little experiences I had shared with my family members. The thought of them dying seemed overly impossible, so I felt no reason to. However, the combination of all these events told me to do otherwise. Everyone experiences loss from death. It is an inescapable fate. While not desired, it cannot be stopped, either. What really matters is what we learn from the loss, and how we cope with it. I realized I should appreciate and cherish every moment spent with my family members and friends. Even so, one should not appreciate the moments in life because of a fear of death.