An event that will never go down in any history books, nor will it be within a textbook that future generations for years to come is the death of my grandmother on August 13, 2013. It seems the history books saves its finite pages for things that affect a wide range of people, and has ramifications that still have effects for years after the event(s) take place. However, ones that aren’t remembered by the general public are not any less important (just a side note that I am not trying to stand here stating that look at me and all my problems because they are way worse and more important than the tragedies that have occurred throughout the world, I am just saying that just because something doesn’t get attention doesn’t mean it wasn’t important nor does it mean that it never happened either).

Before my grandmother’s death in 2013, I was oblivious what it truly meant to be in pain. Everything else was just a numbing effect up to that point, something that kept me in my bubble protected from the “real world.” Even when she collapsed at 3 in the morning that April of my senior year of middle school, my mom continued to reassure me that everything was okay as I constantly accompanied them to the hospital, where I would always be forced to sit in the waiting room for my parents to talk with doctors and visit my grandmother. This went on for weeks until she was transferred to a rehab center, a place where I could finally visit. This is supposed to be the part of the event where a history book would skip to the part where they say “family members stayed by her side until she took her final breath” or some other garbage to make sure that kids are at least half interested when forced to read a chapter for their homework assignment. It didn’t happen that way. I was a child that thought I could somehow trust my mom that everything was going to be okay. So I took advantage of the time I spent with my grandmother, sometimes to the point where I would get bored and beg my parents take me home after hours upon hours of standing by mute grandmother’s side. At least the last time I saw her I at least had the decency to kiss her on the head and say “I love you, Grandma.”

When my family got the call at around 1 in the morning, my dad picked up the phone with dark thoughts continuing to race through his mind as he raised the phone to his ear and slowly, seemingly enunciating every possible syllable out of the five letter word “Hello?” He just stood there, for what seemed like hours, thoughts racing through my mind trying to rationalize the call. “It’s a wrong number. No, wait, he wouldn’t be on the phone that long. Maybe it’s my uncle calling him and he’s having car trouble again. That’s got to be it. My grandmother can’t be dead. She’s going to be better. Everything’s going to be okay.” I was awoken from my trance when my dad hung up the phone. “That was the center. Grandma just died.” He shook his head no like he always does when something wrong happens, never working up the courage to actually shed a tear. That all changed when he called my great aunt and he broke the news again for the second time, this time it really hit him. He burst into tears. That was the first time I ever saw my dad cry, let alone burst into tears. Everything changed from there. Life was no longer one-dimensional of me going to school and living life as usual in a routine because there is no such thing as routine when it comes to the life cycle that God hands down to you.

Not everything will be okay. No matter how hard you work, no matter how good of a boy you are, no matter how much you trust your parent, no matter how much you think your parents live in the same routine, it may all day become a lie from one event and prove that everything will not in fact “be okay.” Sometimes they will work out and trusting your parents, working hard, and overall being a good person will work out for you and you will be blessed with good fortune. However, this historical event provided me the notion that even though you can be blessed with all of your endeavors doesn’t mean you are shielded from tragedy as a whole. We all will experience death one day whether we are good or not. That doesn’t mean we must let the tragedies of life get in our way and stop us from looking at all the blessings that were in front of us all along. But, like everything in life, this is much easier said than done. Much much easier said than done, as one can tell by the writing of my autoethnography. I think all I can right now is talk as I still continue to get over a tragedy that hinders me from a more realistic perspective of the world. Could it be I am waiting for a blessing of equal magnitude? Only one way to find out…(once again easier said than done)

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