Losing a loved one, a constant shining, supportive figure in your life, is never easy. When my grandma died 3 years ago it was sudden and heartbreaking. The day before she had the stroke that killed her she was at my house celebrating my birthday with me. I had just turned 16. She was laughing with me and smiling with me and making me feel special. And then she was gone. She was gone and she wasn’t coming back. She would never see me go to prom. She would never see me graduate high school. She would never see me pick a college and then graduate from it. She would never see me get married. She would never see me again and I would never see her either.

I was always incredibly close with my grandma. We played games together and watched TV together and talked to each other. When I was sad she would comfort me and she always knew how to make me laugh and feel better in a way that only grandparents ever really seem to know how to do. I always felt as though she understood me in a way that no one else in my family ever did.

Losing a grandparent is hard for everyone. But what I learned from the death of my grandma is that we should take their death and make it something worthwhile. We should live for them and laugh for them and be happy for them because that’s all our grandparents ever want for us. I changed my outlook on life when my grandma died. I decided to be happier because I knew she would want me to be. I decided to do more of what I wanted to do with my time and with my life because that’s what I know she wanted me to do. All the wise things that our grandparents tell us while they are alive seem to come to life after they die.

The truth of death and especially the death of a grandparent is this: it is excruciatingly hard, but at the end of the day, we all learn to move on and we all cope with the tragedy that has occurred. I think about my grandma all of the time and I always wish she was here and that I could laugh with her and watch TV with her just one more time. All I want and all I can do now is to live a life and leave behind a legacy that will make her proud.