February 2017 I lost my grandmother to a long fight against Cancer. November 2018 I lost my grandfather to a sudden series of strokes. Since February 2017 my life completely changed but it wasn’t until November 2018 that I understood what was happening.

Back story: I was born in the Dominican Republic where alongside my brother and my single mother we lived with my grandparents. One day my mother like every hardworking mother decided to look for more and she did. She moved to New York to find a better future for us. During this time I lived in DR with my grandparents and shortly they became my entire life. Losing them became my biggest fear in life. When I say biggest fear I mean growing up a little girl I would cry randomly so that the day they died I could be prepared and not cry as much. Reality check, it did not work.  

I’m writing this piece just to openly ask everyone to have a bit of patience with people who lose others. I still do not understand why it’s so hard for society to accept that some people need a pause. Is it so hard to understand that suddenly burying someone take time to heal? Accepting someone is gone takes more than one week or one month. Honestly I’m sure no time is enough. We just learn to live with the pain.

The hardest part of losing my grandparents was probably accepting the definition of the word: FOREVER.

For the First time in my life I had to accept this. I had to accept that forever, the forever we always use when we tell someone i love you, forever. Suddenly became goodbye, forever.

Forever hurts. Forever is dark. Forever is lonely. Forever is agonizing. Forever is FOREVER.

Which is why daily I wake up knowing that Forever I can’t call them and that makes waking up hard.

Everyday I have to accept that Forever we won't have vacations together. That Forever our doctors appointments are done. That Forever we will not speak on the phone.

I know connections do carry out pass death. I know my grandparents are with me each day. I know that they are always with me. This makes the pain a bit bearable but doesn’t take away that FOREVER IS FOREVER.

It’s important as humans to accept that pain for everyone is shown different, that everyday they might smile to you but behind that smile there's pain. Let’s practice empathy, compassion.

Let’s also practice constant show of affection. Let’s love those here. Those around us. Let’s fight for love. Let’s hug too much. Let’s love too much. Let’s kiss too much. Let’s tell each other we love eachother too much.

Let’s do too much so that when forever come we learn to accept it is too much.

xoxo P$