Not everything happens for a reason

I thought breast cancer was bad enough, I didn’t think there was much worse. Why should being strong and fighting through something have a consequence so quickly? Being perfectly healthy and then boom! All gone, all at once. I guess ridiculous things like that happen… for no reason at all.

It was a beautiful May afternoon in the year of 2004. My family was voyaging to my grandparents in the aging navy minivan. We were going for dinner because my aunt and uncle were in from New Hampshire to see us all. After a ride that felt like hours, we finally arrived and everyone was there to greet us. We were last to arrive out of my three aunts and uncles and my grandparents. It was about three in the afternoon and the guys were in the living room watching NFL football, questioning the Browns play calling. The ladies were in the kitchen muttering about some actress and preparing a delicious dinner. After a couple conversations we got on the topic of my grandpas cancer that he had defeated. It was about year after his chemotherapy had ended so he was finally announced free of cancer. My sister and I at the time were a lot younger so we were more clueless than everybody else. We asked a lot of questions such as, “did it hurt” and “what were you thinking about when it was happening “. He gave us pretty watered-down answers because of our lack of knowledge and we accepted them as the truth.

At last, dinner was ready and it saved my day because I was starving. We were having a delectable ham that has been slow cooking for hours and it was just waiting to be inhaled by the family. Before we could eat, we had to say prayer which is an always thing with family occasions. Gramps led it like he always does as the religious man he is. It went something like this “Dear lord, thank you for the food on our plates, the family we have and the blessings you give us. Please look over us and protects us. Amen.” Unfortunately, that would be the last time I hear that from that same voice. We all dug into the food and enjoyed dinner. We could only stay for a short while after dinner because we had to get home. We said goodbye with out knowing it would be our last, and got on the road.

The following Monday I woke up for school, at my usual time but something was different this time. My dad woke me up instead of my mom so I asked where she was and my dad replied that she had to go to grandmas for something. Thinking it was nothing; I got dressed and stumbled downstairs to eat breakfast. I was nibbling on some eggos when I noticed my brother hesitate down stairs doing something unusual for him self. He was crying. I’ve never seen him cry so I knew something was up, and that’s when my dad sat next to me and broke the ice. He got straight to the point by whispering, “Ryan, grandpa didn’t wake up this morning.” My brother left and I went upstairs. I walked up the stairs in tears, brushed my teeth in tears and left in tears.

There are reasons for many things in life, like if you push someone they move, or if you jump then you come back down. But it’s hard to think everything has a reason. All the car accidents in the world and innocent people getting killed for no reason. All the hard working citizens finding their life cut short because of the incident on 9/11. Breath-taking diseases happening to the nicest and happiest people in the world. Making their families and friends suffer for a life time for things that shouldn’t have even happened. And the healthiest people, just not waking up one morning, for no reason at all.