Every year, I’d get a phone call on October 29^th, I’d get to hear you tell me an over exaggerated “Happy Birthday”. This year however, that call isn’t going to come. We spent day after day together and we always made our birthdays special, as if we weren’t getting older per say, but wiser. I won’t get to walk into your house on my birthday and hug you and tell you how my day was and if the fact that I was getting a year older that meant that you were close to getting older yourself. You were my person, the person I could tell anything to and I didn’t have to worry about hiding it, or lying, because chances are you already knew something was wrong. It was up until last year when we saw each other everyday, and then one little slip changed everything. I still tried to see you as often as I could, but your condition worsened and my schooling had gotten heavier as midterms approached. I constantly thought about you and asked as many questions that came to my mind when I talked to my mom.

Some of your last coherent words were said to me on my birthday and they are something I will never forget. It’s hard to believe the last conversation we had was a year ago. Not talking to your best friend in a year after a conversation as amazing, and eye opening as it was is like trying the best cake you’ve ever had and always thinking about it, but never actually being able to try it again. If I knew that conversation would have been our last, I would have said so much more, and at the same time barely say anything at all. I never in my mind thought I’d lose you as young as I did, nor did I ever think that I’d have to go through a birthday without you for a long period of time. If you ever taught me anything that will stick with me it’d be always love, no matter what happens in life you don’t know who needs it more. Grandpa, the last conversation we had ended with a gurgling, “Happy Birthday, I’ll love you for always.” I wouldn’t have spent my birthday with anyone else, because since day one until just after my birthday, it was he and I against the world.