As I walk into the hospital, the faint smell of blood seeping through a veil of antiseptic products hits my nose like a punch in the face. The false sense of happiness on the faces of my family members makes me realize the gravity of the situation. We are all coming to the hospital to see my grandpa because he just went through a heart attack and was flown in a helicopter to University Hospitals in Cleveland. Grandpa might not make it I think to myself as we walk through the dark dismal hallways to the intensive care unit where he is being treated. The waiting room is a tiny area with the only furnishings being a few uncomfortable couches and chairs scattered around. The doctor comes in and tells us what they are doing to him. The procedure seems risky, they were going to reroute his blood flow away from the clogged artery. There’s nothing to worry about, this will go great I tell myself even if I don’t fully believe it. I walk out of the hospital and the cool breeze of a midsummer night feels extraordinary on my skin. My parents and I arrived at our hotel and the realization of how tired I am hit me. I climb into the bed, and for a second I forget about everything that went on as I drift into my slumber. 

The next day, we trudge back to the hospital still in a daze from lack of sleep. The smell of the hospital instantly snaps me out of my stupor. The doctors told us in a patronizing tone, that the surgery went well but they said that he doesn’t have the correct amount of water in his body. It’s always 2 steps forward and 1 step back I think to myself. One day he’s doing great, and the next day there is another problem that requires another surgery. We are in the waiting area and my mom heads in to see him. According to her, he was looking as if he wanted something, but he couldn’t talk so he was waving his finger around. She was nervous because she didn’t know if he needed something badly. She came up with a good idea to write down all the letters of the alphabet on a piece of paper and point to each letter to spell out what he wanted. She started pointing, A, no answer, B, nothing, and that continued until the letter P, then continued through the rest of the alphabet. No response. She restarts the alphabet and he nods at the letters, E,P,S,I. My mom tried to decode the word and finally came up with “PEPSI”. She asks if that was right, and he nods. 

She starts laughing and says “Come on Dad, you can’t seriously want a Pepsi at a time like this.”

She told the story to the rest of us and when we heard it, our solemn faces lit up with smiles. When the clock strikes 6 pm we go to the hospital cafeteria to eat some bland slop out of a plastic tray. We head back to the hotel after another day of discombobulated emotions. 

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP. The alarm goes off. I look over disoriented, it feels like it should be 2 in the morning, not 6. We have to get up early to get to the hospital because the first day of soccer tryouts is later the same day. We only have about 3 hours to visit before we have to travel the 4 and a half hours back to Cincinnati. I get in the shower and the cold water chills me to the bone, but also wakes me up. My mom, dad, and I venture through the carpeted lifeless hallways of the hotel to the elevator. I press the cold hard button saying 1 and the elevator does its magic. The sensational aroma of pancakes on the griddle and bacon being fried enters my nose as soon as I step out of the elevator into the busy continental breakfast area. My stomach starts rumbling so loud it sounds like a train. I wolf down my waffles and bacon so fast I forgot that I had ever eaten. As I eat I think about what I would do if my grandpa were to die.

“What’s on your mind?” My dad asks.

“I’m thinking about grandpa” I responded. 

“I think it will all be okay.” My dad says. 

At this point, I don’t fully believe him. There have already been so many surgeries and something bad could happen during one of them at any moment. Any mistake by the medical personnel or anything going awry during surgery could be fatal. After having a rather unhealthy, but filling breakfast, we step into the cool morning breeze and head into the ominous darkness towards the looming hospital in the distance. When we arrive we are greeted with a thermometer stuck on our foreheads, a mask to put on our faces, and a little orange sticker that has a number on it to put on our shirt. We head through more hallways with people scattered around the various lobbies, some coughing, some talking obnoxiously loud on their phones, dodging hospital staff, doctors and equipment along the way up to the room. We found my uncle and found a good spot to sit down for the rest of the day. My uncle and my grandma had been there for at least half an hour already and they told us that the procedure to increase his water level went well but he was extremely constipated as a result of the surgeries. My uncle said that my grandpa was going to have to undergo another surgery to correct his constipation. He also said that the doctors told him that we only had an hour to get our visiting in. My mom suggests that I go to see him since I haven’t yet. I tell her that I don’t want to go in by myself and she says that she will go with me. A doctor guides us to the room and we follow through the dim hallways, evading medical supplies that are piled up against the wall every 2 feet. We finally get to the room and we enter. My grandpa doesn’t look so good. His skin is super pale with a greenish undertone. He has tubes coming out of his nose, arms, stomach, and mouth. He appears to be awake. 

“Are you hanging in there?” I said and he nodded.

 I also asked if he got that Pepsi he wanted, and I could tell he tried to smile. 

We talked for a few minutes and then my mom said “We’ll let you get some sleep.” “Bye I love you.” I say to him. 

Little did I know that it would be the last time I would say those words. I got the call after the first day of soccer tryouts. My dad and I had driven back to Cincinnati the day before. I felt like the tryouts went well and when I was playing I forgot all about the drama that was going on. But that soon faded. The call was from my mom. It was on FaceTime and my dad and I sat down to answer. As soon as I picked up I knew something wasn’t right. 

My mom had been crying, before I could ask what happened, she told me the words I hoped I would never hear. “I’m sorry, grandpa didn’t make it.” 

Those words echoed in my head, I didn’t know what to think. Throughout this entire time, I didn’t know if my grandpa would survive and now that he succumbed to death I didn’t know what to think. My emotions were whizzing around like a tornado. I was heartbroken because I wouldn’t get to see him again and I was irate that they couldn’t do more to save him. But through the mix of emotions, I realized that life doesn’t last forever. At this moment I realized that you can lose someone at any moment. This was the first time I had lost someone very close to me, and I learned that you should cherish the moments that you have with the important people in your life so that when they are gone, you have something to remember them by.  

The next few days, life dragged by in a blur and I was devastated by the loss of my grandpa. All I could think about was how I would never see him again about the things we never got to do together like play golf and go to a car show. I tried to think about the good memories and not the memories of the past week that haunted my thoughts. I thought about how if he survived he would’ve bragged to his friends about how much the medical bills were going to cost, over half a million dollars. I thought about how he would’ve been glad that he didn’t get sent to Cleveland Clinic because he hated the Cleveland Clinic doctors for some reason, he always held the strangest grudges against people. We held a memorial for him a few months later. It was supposed to be a time to remember the good times with him and honor his life, it was a good idea. After the memorial, I grew less and less crestfallen and learned to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to see my grandpa again. Things have gotten way easier since then but I still have times where I wish I got to do more things with him before he passed. But whenever I get down, I remember the good times and happy moments. This experience was important to me because I lost someone very close and incredibly significant in my life.