Losing the One You Love

If I knew then what I know now, my looks upon life would have been different. The thoughts that I had towards life would have been different. Everyone had a feeling it was coming but never saw it approach. When it did, the results were not exactly what you would call a relief.

At the age of 54, my uncle was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. He was already on the last stage, and life was slowly punishing him. With pains and aches that were unexplainable. The last time I saw him was in the summer, and something’s telling me I won’t have another. Although he lived halfway across Canada, in Kyle, Saskatchewan, if truth be told we were exceptionally close. Smoking for the past 30 years of his life, it all back washed on him. Full of life, and having the words, “nothing can stop me,” written on his forehead, vanished. It was like I have an empty space in me, that’s draining itself. Looking up at him when I was young, and as the years past watching my eyes finally meet with his, but they looked old, tired. That was going to be the story of his life for the next year. Why should someone so good, have to suffer, like that?

Wishing he would just, in some way go. To see him live out his last moment in pain is unacceptable. Wishing he would just not wake up one morning. Nothing ever stopped him from living, and this has now put a brick wall in front of him, a barrier that would never move. I have lost all hope, and I desperately want the suffering to end. Since the cancer was found, the ride of life had become covered more drastically with rocks to make it a rough surface. I would do anything for his hole to be covered, and for him to simply rest in peace. If I somehow could take back those years, when I never paid attention to his presence, I would.

Conditions are further away from good, they are unable to register. Surprised he’s made it this far, and at the same time in denial that he should live. Everyone wants to live forever, and have things placed in front of them, no one expects to win it upon themselves. My Uncle, Robert Graves was the opposite of those no-life people. He drove himself to get what he anticipated to have. Working so hard to give others theirs, I wish they would help him keep his. Life. Nothing promising will come out of it, and nothings ever perfect. I’ve learnt that much.

One word represents my uncle, and Father’s brother, “strong.” He was one of a kind, saving people’s lives, to putting away the wrong things in life behind bars. Or playing hockey, and having his dream end by taking a slap shot in the ankle, smashing it, and never able to skate quite right again. Watching his best friend die, and saving the rest from the man who murdered her. I guess it’s my turn now, to watch him die, but having nothing to save. What can I do? What is there to do? Other than the mental support, but even then, I can’t do much because of the drugs he’s taking for the pain. I pray every night, that he doesn’t remember life in his last couple of years, I want him to remember what it was like to feel alive, to feel the grasshoppers skim the side of your leg when you walk through the field, to have a little brother who looks up to you. The first time he learnt how to ride a bike. Not the last. Never the last. Only the part where we say, “I’m losing the one I love.”
Life is never what we expect, and most of the time that’s the joy we achieve out of it. Living day to day is all we can do, and forget the past, because when you drag the remains behind you, there will never be a chance to have a future. Expecting for the sun to come out every day and break the rain, you’re wasting your time. Life gives you plenty of chances and goals to achieve all we simply have to do is push ourselves. Personally I believe in karma, and what you portray will eventually run back. They say to be in love is the best feeling a human being can have, whatever you believe in, go for it but I say, “how can that be?” We can’t make a choice in love, it comes naturally, and when that special moment does happen, I’m glad for you but life’s about choices. Depending on the ones you make, results in what happens in the future. The life I have now, I would never change it for anything. Some days I hate it but when I reflect back on to it after the day has ended, and take a few breaths the words, “I’ll get by as always” come to my mind.

I look up to like the people who survived a tragedy. Most of us knew Ashley Hyatt, and some didn’t. I did. When I heard of her death, I paused; a rush of cold blood hit my heart. Her parents, her best friends….. They lost the one they loved; they never saw it coming, or its approach. We all go through it together, and I think that’s what helps us move on. She was one of a kind, and I’m glad I did hang out with her that one summer; she changed my life as she did too many others. Carrying with her a gift, to brighten people’s lives in a way that not many could. She was too young to leave, but I know she’s up in the clouds watching, she left her mark on our earth in a dramatic way. She will always be remembered. You were one of a kind, rest in peace.

What did I learn this year, what have I experienced this year falls into the same hand: Live my life and not worry about the small things and skim the tough, to be only myself, because life’s to short to be anyone else. Enjoy the little things in life because in the end those are the most important, to take every step slowly, because the faster you do, the earlier life will pass. And never forget, what they taught me, or how they made us feel when they was there.. I remember our family modem, “Never give up.” They will be forced to give up, and I never will, because of them.