Grieve no More

           It was not very long ago, when something happened that changed my perspective on the meaning of life and death. Hearing someone tell me of the loss of someone special is the last thing I wanted to hear. On Friday, Sept. 1st it seemed like a normal day, nothing felt wrong or sad, but one sentence changed all of that. “There’s no easy way of saying this,” my mom said full of sorrow, “but sister Connie was in a car accident, and she’s in heaven now.” My two sisters and I  just stood in the dining room in shock . For a second I was in denial of what my mom had just said, wondering how something like that could happen.

         Earlier that day I when I came home from school it was the regular routine: homework, chores, and watching my sisters, Gabriella and Madison when they got home. When Gabriella and Madison did get home we were all hyper and full of laughter.  My nine year old sister, Gabriella suggested that we play a little prank on my mom by removing the so-called “crystals” from the dining room chandelier. I decided to go along with it, just to see if my mom would notice what we had done. Gabriella and I  tried to convince our five year old sister, Madison, to be quiet about it because mom would be arriving very soon. When we were about half way through on the chandelier Gabriella went to the door and ran back to the dining room. “Hurry,” she said, “mom’s coming! ” Gabriella and I  got most of the crystals off and hid them quickly. My sisters and I went outside to greet my mom. We noticed that she was crying and looked as if she’d been crying for a long time. When we asked her what was wrong she said she would tell us inside. My mom saw the chandelier and smiled faintly, but she was still in tears.

               “There’s no easy way of saying this,” she said, “but sister Connie was in a car accident,  and she’s in heaven now.” Standing there in shock, I was trying to think of everything else there was to think about, however, that did not work. Then my mind was filled  with all kinds of thoughts. I decided that I probably should put the crystals back on the chandelier, and did so, or at least tried to. I could hardly even do something simple like that because of the news I had heard moments earlier. Tears were coming to my eyes and the light from the chandelier was blurry. As I put on some of the crystals back on the chandelier I started thinking about the book that sister Connie gave to me around my birthday. Just in that second the strangest thing happened, there was a light bulb that had been burned out for a long time, when I started thinking about the book it turned on. It was now the brightest light bulb in the chandelier. It was a strange coincidence but, in a way, it brought comfort to me. I knew that sister Connie had not suffered and she was in heaven. Then I thought for a while, all of the sudden it came to me, she did not die at all, she is still alive. Even though she is living in a different place she is still living and as happy as can be. This was an amazing realization to me, because I had never thought of it that way.