Nowadays

When my grandma died almost a year and a half ago, it changed everything. My family immediately became closer in those first few days that we mourned over it. My grandmother was the rock of the family and we all sort of felt that we lost our rock. We now had to come together and form our own new rock. We all tried reassuring each other that it would be alright.
“My life circled around her. What am I going to do now?” my grandpa would say.
“She’d want you to move on,” my aunt, Sam, would say.
“She was the only one I could talk too,” any of us would say.
“You can always talk to me,” someone else would say.
I remember one time I was sitting on the kitchen floor petting the family dog, Jake, crying to myself and then Goobie, the nickname for my uncle, came in with Emily, Sam and Goobie’s friend, and sat by me. Goobie hugged me as I hugged Jake. Emily hugged Goobie. It was slightly awkward, but it was reassuring. Goobie then sat back next to me along with Emily.
I looked at Goobie and said, “I miss her so much already.”
He nodded and that brought him to tears. I’d never seen him cry before that. “Me too, Lyss. Me too.” Then Emily started crying and Goobie hugged her as I hugged Jake even harder. We just sat there crying and then Goobie spoke up again through his tears.
“I love you, Lyss. You’re an incredible kid. It’s gonna be alright, Lyss. It will.”
Amazingly, he was right. We got past the mourning part and moved into the moving on part of the whole incredibly long process. But like I said, it changed a lot in all of our lives.
Sam had a baby about three and a half weeks ago. She also got married this past summer and it was one of the best wedding’s I have ever been too and I’ve been to quite a few. We lost one and gained two. I love Sam a lot and I look up to her like a sister and I am very happy that we now have little Freddie and James added to our crazy family.
My grandpa became different by going out and having fun more. He recently redid his entire kitchen, shedding my grandma off of the walls as he tore the wallpaper down and repainted it. Now it looks incredibly new and it gives a warm feeling to the whole house. That’s a good thing because my grandpa’s house is where the entire family goes at least three times a week, except for Goobie who lives in Houghton, but he comes up on the weekends.
My mom sort of went downhill from everyone else and she kind of took my brother with her. I don’t feel like going into details, but let’s just say my mom’s been having drinking problems every now and then. My brother, on the other hand, has been acting really bad lately by swearing and getting into fights and not doing well in school. Everyone is trying to help them both and they are slowly recovering.
Me, well I’m just me. I’m the one in the family everyone looks at as the one who knows what’s going on. The one that can take control of the situation and not let it bother them. I’m just me.
All of this makes me realize that things won’t always be the same. Things always keep changing and it’s happening faster than I ever wanted it to. It’s changed my perspective on how life will move on without you if you don’t keep up. I think we’re all just trying to keep up. It’s like trying to catch a train that’s moving faster than you can run. It won’t slow down, but if you can catch up, you can just ride along. I’m still just running.