I walked into the hospital telling myself, “It's going to be okay”. I thought that if I told myself that sentence enough it was going to make it true. I thought that maybe she’ll get out of here alive. Three weeks felt like forever. It felt like a lifetime of sleeping in the same black leather recliner, watching the same shows, and my mom getting me Twizzler bites from the vending machine every night to cheer me up. I loved Twizzlers, I still do. I consumed my Twizzlers like my grandma consumed alcohol. That was whenever we could. She loved alcohol. It was her escape from the real world. Before it took her from it. She wanted to go home, I know she did. She repeated it multiple times. She wanted her life to go back to normal. I wanted my life to go back to normal. We all wanted to feel ok and not lost. But it was too late. Her addiction ripped her away from us. Before my grandmother's addiction ripped her away from us. I didn't have a full understanding of alcohol. I knew it was bad but I didn't know how bad it really was. In the beginning, I was confused. I was confused why she had let this happen. She knew and planned for it. I never understood how someone could know something was going to happen and not try to fix it. We always were so desperate to find something to do. The only thing to do in the hospital was watch the same episodes of Spongebob over and over again or watch my grandmother lay in her hospital bed dying as everyone had an emotion of sorrow.

Each day, with nothing to do. I and my family would take a stroll around the overly large hospital, hoping nothing happened when we were gone. Walking the same halls was incredibly repetitive, but that was the only way to get her off our minds. While staying in the hospital. My parents felt upset and distraught. Upset that we were having to live this life in the hospital for weeks on end. My parents felt for us. They wanted to treat us with something nice to try and get her off our minds. We went to a small frozen yogurt shop near St. Mary Hospital. I still remember everything so vividly. I got a vanilla yogurt and I topped it with Oreos and gummy bears galore because I could. It was actually starting to take her off my mind. I was happy again. I was smiling for the first time in weeks. Eating my frozen yogurt made me forget about the situation I was in. Once our adventure ended we went back to the quiet, empty hospital where we slept every night. We were watching Spongebob and I was eating my Twizzler bites once again and my sister and I had a proposition. “Why don't we make up a handshake to make grandma feel better”. So that's what we did for an hour. We came up with a complex handshake that we rehearsed and rehearsed multiple times to show my grandmother. We walked up to her room, pulled the curtain, stood there, and told her “We wanted to show you something”. After we finished showing it to her, with the little breath she had left she said “I loved it”. My grandmother was always a cheerful woman. People could never tell because of the grouchy voice that liquor gave her, but she was. She always had a smile. 

My grandmother was a binge drinker. Whenever she got the chance she drank. She drank all day, every day. Whenever she didn’t work. She didn't know when to stop. Going to her house, seeing the empty bottles of beer and hard liquor. I didn't understand what it meant. I knew she had a problem, but I thought she had it under control. I learned that she didn't, the hard way. As she lay in her blue sheeted hospital bed with her matching blue gown. She was laying there still, looking at the TV. I looked back and forth between her and the TV. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to say goodbye yet. I thought I had more time. After watching her show, with the whole family surrounding her. She said, “I love you”. I thought I could keep my composure. But I couldn't, so I broke down. Fresh tears ran down my face. Snot running from my nose. The loud sniffles that were coming from the room. The nurse was standing there with no words to say besides an emotion of sorrow. We all felt uncomfortable, sad, and confused. Why us? Was this all my grandmothers doing or was this God's plan unwinding? We weren't sure. We wanted to hope that it was God's plan instead of my grandmother's. I didn't want to think of the fact that this was all happening. My grandmother knew that this was going to happen. I was angry. I’m not sure if I was angry at her or at her addiction. I told myself if this is a possibility of drinking I don't want to. She was preparing for it. She was only sixty years old with her funeral and will set. She was so young. Too young. 

At only the age of sixty. She had gotten herself so sick, that there was no turning back. She was lying in the hospital bed. I was looking at her. Her skin was a yellow color. At that moment I knew we were going to lose her. I finally knew what the alcohol was doing to her. At this point in my unfortunate situation, I was distraught. I didn't know what to make of the moment. I didn't want to say goodbye but I knew I had to soon. There were so many people with tears in their eyes as my grandmother slept. I was finally feeling sad. I started to cry knowing that any moment she was going away. The tears were rolling down my face. My aunt was hugging me telling me, “It is all going to be okay,” but it wasn't. There was no saving her. None of us wanted to say goodbye, but we had to. My goodbye wasn't much. It was a simple hug and the words I love you. But from then on, I told myself. Look at her, look at what the alcohol has done to her and her body. That night I went to my father's house and when I came back 3 days later to my mother's. I was met with the news. My mother told us that we had lost her the night that we left. I was lost. I never got to ask her why she didn't try to stop this moment from happening. Why did she not prevent this? She knew it was going to happen but did absolutely nothing. I didn't know a lot about her. I never knew what her favorite color was, her favorite animal. I knew nothing. I was so young I didn't even think to ask her. There is a lot I regret. One of my biggest regrets is not saving the little time that I had left with my grandmother. 

In those 3 weeks of staying in the hospital, I learned so much. Not all of the things that I learned were good; however, I learned them. This incident taught me that you only have so little time with people. When I was younger I always complained about not wanting to go to my grandmother's house. But now I wish that I would have gone every time that I was offered to. After it all, I valued life so much more and now I am terrified to die. Whenever I think of the thought of death my stomach gets twisted and I lose my appetite. My grandmother taught me not to drink. She never actually said those words; however, she implied them. She implied that if I start an addiction I think I can handle it, I most likely can't always handle it. Because of watching her rot in her hospital bed, I made myself a promise. I'll never drink alcohol, and if I do, I will do it responsibly. If I end up creating an addiction when I am older, I will seek help. I don't want to die because of something I could control but chose not to. My grandmother taught me to value my life because it is so short. People only get so little time with the people that they love so why not make the most of it? When I die, I don't want to die from alcohol. I want to die from something exhilarating. Not an addiction, that I could have gotten help or received treatment for.