The Most Tragic Event

I laid on the couch with my little sister, I was 7 at the time and she was only 4. We were of course, watching the same episode of Spongebob we had recorded on the TV that we’d watch every day after I got home from school. Snuggled up in our matching pj’s in our parents room, we ate our snacks and would fight over the blanket because someone always had more than the other. As innocent as we were, we had no idea what we were in for.

Later that night after we got our baths and got tucked into our own beds as we did every night, we laid there for a while, knocking on the wall that separated our rooms. We had codes we made up, we would knock 4 times to tell each other goodnight. It always took a long time for Jaden to fall asleep, but unfortunately she would always fall asleep with the TV on, and I would be forced to get up and turn it off. I was up late that night waiting for her to finally close her eyes and go to bed. I turned her TV off, and headed to my bed where I laid back down and started to fall asleep.

*Sobbing noises*

I woke up, to hear my mom talking downstairs. She was crying I think, the thought of my mom crying in the middle of the night scared me. I was scared to get out of bed and find out what was wrong, so I laid there and pretended to be asleep. Shortly after that, I heard someone walking up the steps. It wasn’t my mom, and it wasn’t my dad. I could always tell the difference between the two of their footsteps on the stairs. My cousins Wendy and Tammy came walking into my room, they were crying to. They picked me up and carried me into my mom and dad’s room and laid me on the bed. Wendy carried Jaden in and laid her next to me, she was barely awake. Tammy hugged and kissed me, longer than she usually did. Something didn’t feel right.

“Why is everyone crying?” I asked.

Tammy looked over at Wendy, they called my mom upstairs. She was crying so hard, I hadn’t seen my mom cry like that before. In fact, I rarely saw my mom cry. She laid on the bed beside me and Jaden, Wendy and Tammy were sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Pappi died” My mom said in between gasping breaths.

The whole room was silent. My mom started crying even harder, I was still too young to grasp the concept of what this truly meant, that I would never see him again. I didn’t cry, I felt sad, but I didn’t cry. My mom had always been really close with her dad, she would take me and my sister there every day. We never missed a day, rain or shine, sick or well, we never missed a day.

As days went on, and time passed by nothing had healed over. It was time to get the closure that we all needed, it was time for the funeral. I had never lost someone close to me before, this was the first. I had never seen the lifeless body of a loved one, lying there breathless. I remember walking up to his casket, staring at him, waiting for his chest to start raising up and down again. It did not. There were times where I thought I had actually convinced myself that I really did see him breathing. Hoping that at any second he would sit up and say “Pappi makes me happy” like he always did. It was something I wish I had saw.

All of the kids gathered outside and would play tag or some kind of childish act, I realize now just how disrespectful that was of us. On the third day of the funeral, it took place at our church in Deer Lakes. I went to preschool here, it was a familiar place. I felt comfortable. There was a dove release that day, it was the most memorable event that has taken place in my life. Something about those doves got to me. The second I heard the song “Wind Beneath My Wings” by Bette Midler playing and doves started fleeing, I knew what had really happened, my Pap, my hero, the person who had taken care of me and never let me go a day without talking, and acting like a lady was gone. I knew then, that I would never hear him sing “She’ll be coming around the mountain when she comes” and riding my little horse across the living-room floor. I knew I would never have his special Pappi eggs for breakfast again. I knew that just like those doves, he was flying away, but this time forever. I turned around and grabbed my moms leg, I was crying now. I understood what had happened.

As time continued to go on, my Gug wasn’t doing well at all. I saw sides of her I never thought I would. She was a mess, my mom cried all of the time and my grades were dropping. The family started spending a lot of time together and took a lot of time off work too. That summer, I lived at my Gug’s house. In fact, all of the grand-kids did. She had always told us we were her reason for living, not realizing at the time that she was being serious. There was six of us grand-kids, who stayed with her for the whole summer. I would be lying if I said that we weren’t worried about our Gug. It had almost been a year since Pappi passed, and she still wasn’t doing well, she would look at pictures of him every day and cry, she would play “Wind Beneath My Wings” in the car and have to pull over because the tears that filled her eyes were stopping her from seeing the road.

In August 2008 it was time to go back to school, that meant back to our own houses, away from Gug, away from our cousins. It was the first time in almost a year that we were all separated. When I started school my grades continued to drop. I couldn’t focus, I got in trouble a lot. I rebelled a lot more than I should have been, something was wrong. My mom would get phone calls about me all the time.

“Mrs. Gross, Shaylin said she doesn’t have her homework”

“Mrs. Gross, Shaylin failed her test… Again.”

These phone calls home were becoming a more, and more frequent thing now. I would hide all of my tests in the back of my binder so my parents wouldn’t see the big F that my teacher put right on the front of my paper real big, like it was something I should be proud to show off. As for my homework, I sat down and did my homework with my dad every night. My homework was always done, I just wasn’t turning it in. I knew the material I was learning, when my teachers would go through my binder for me, and find my homework, I got good grades, they knew I knew what I was doing, I just wasn’t trying on tests or in class. Finally, my mom had enough of this, I couldn’t blame her though. She knew I was doing my work at home, she didn’t understand why I was doing so bad at school. She took me to my doctors, and explained the situation, it took a while for them to figure out what was wrong with me. Something that would change my life tremendously.

When I was 8 I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, it caused me to have panic and anxiety attacks, I had multiple nervous habits/ticks that would occur when I was nervous or stressed out about something. I got made fun of for my nervous habits, and anxiety attacks. I went through a phase where I was afraid of everything, I couldn’t be away from my mom for long periods of time, I had the worst separation anxiety when I was away from her. I couldn’t stay away from home, I couldn’t even take being away from my mom while she was at work. I was afraid that she would die too. I feared losing everybody, my dad, my Gug, my sister, everyone. Mainly my mom. Which is why I was doing so poorly in school. I would get myself so upset to the point I made myself sick, which then caused a huge fear of throwing up. I was terrified of it, I couldn’t even be around someone that even complained of a stomach ache. I was kept up at night, I couldn’t sleep. It affected my school work, I got put on many medications. None of them did any justice for me. I tried therapy, but could never open up to them enough for them to help me. I tried different therapists, I could never click with any of them. seventh grade came along and I finally decided I needed to do something, because I was afraid of life. I went to a neurologist and he recommended I got put on blood pressure medication to help “calm me down” and stop my anxiety attacks.

August 2016 has marked 5 years that I’ve been on my medication, It’s helped me a lot. I no longer fear little things like getting sick, or being away from home, I don’t fear life anymore. I can go out and have a good time in whatever I’m doing. I’ve come a long way since my Pap died. Although I’ll probably always have a little bit of PTSD from the event I experienced that night, I am doing better. I will never be over the fact that I will never again experience his wet kisses on my cheek, or his amazing Pappi eggs for breakfast, but that is normal when it comes to missing someone who has passed that you held so dear to your heart. I no longer let my anxiety get in my way and I will continue to improve myself and do all things to the best of my ability. Even though Pappi is no longer here, I will continue to make him proud.