When people bring up role models, moms and dads are brought up and the occasional public figure; but for me, my grandmother was my mine. She was a trailblazer, making history with everything she did, I would be crazy not to look up to her. She was the first woman in that state of New York to re-enter Nursing School after being married. She was also one of New Mexico's first Nurse Practitioners, to say the least, she was one of a kind. Not to mention she was the woman that brought me into the magical world of Harry Potter. Every Harry Potter movie that came out, she would take me. Even though she didn't understand what was going on at all, she would sit in confused bliss with me by her side. Simply stated, she was my best friend.

2011 was the year that changed everything. After having a simple cataract surgery on her eyes, my grandma had a small fall in her house. Due to the fall, the doctors were able to find that my grandma had spinal stenosis which is the narrowing of the spinal canal. It can be very painful so they opted for surgery. After six months of rehab and healing, grandma was finally starting to become her old self. This only lasted a small while until the number of UTI's she was getting increased, and her energy levels fell as well as her appetite. Another hospital trip and many tests later, the doctors called in all my aunts and uncles for a sit down. The next day we were told that she had leukemia and it was so far advanced that in the same day she was diagnosed, she was put on hospice care. What I couldn't understand is why was everyone so upset. This is the woman who had survived three other cancers! She could pull through, right? But as the weeks went on, I saw her decline right in front of me. So instead of wallowing in pity, I accepted what was going on, I would wake up at 5 a.m. almost every day and drive to the nursing facility that she was staying at and help her get out of bed, get dressed, and eat breakfast. These mornings were so special to me because it was just her and I again. Just like old times, except instead of watching movies and eating ice cream, she was telling me all about how nursing school would be, telling me that patients are people, not tasks, and how to give the best care. It was learning at the hands of the master.

June 2013 came and grandma's condition was the worst it had been. She wasn't eating anything for breakfast anymore and didn't want to even get out of bed. The second week of June I was going to travel 3 hours away to be a counselor at a camp and didn't know if I should leave with her condition being as it was. She urged me to go, to lead and being the only person on the face of the earth that could convince me to leave, I did. Three days into camp and I get the call. 72 hours into one of the best weeks of my summer, and my whole world came tumbling down. The foundation that I built my life on, had crumbled away beneath me. It left me a crumpled up heap in the corner of a small dormitory room 259 miles away from where my heart longed to be.

I lost who I was, who I wanted to be all during that phone call. Who was I if grandma wasn't there? The day after I returned there was a viewing for the family. I was one of the last to arrive and getting out of the car to the funeral home was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Walking in that funeral home meant that it was real. Seeing her in the coffin, pale and lifeless, would mean that my best friend was gone. It took several family members and all the courage I could muster to walk into the viewing room. It took even more convincing and my mother supporting me to peer into the coffin. In that moment, my world went dark. Every moment from there after was a blur. From the funeral service the next day, to the family dinner that tried to lighten the mood to even saying goodbye to family members that had to leave in the days following.

But as they say, "life goes on." As I started my newest adventure of college, I found that I would quote little grandma-isms, life sayings if you will, that would make every day easier. "If you find someone without a smile, give them yours." Every day I would hear a little bit of her wisdom in everything I would do. Someone would cut me off while I'm driving and before yelling at them in my car I would hear her voice "Anger is an odd way of punishing yourself for the faults of others". Or if I was just having the worst day I remember her saying, "Life is like a quilt, there are never two dark patches next to each other." It would get easier with every passing day.

It's been almost 4 years, and I still miss her more than anything in this world, but to quote A Walk to Remember, "Her love is like the wind, I can't see it, but I can feel it."