All I could think of was "how am I going to move on from this." This is what went through my head as he took his last breath. My grandfather, Roger Conrad, was 50 years old when he got Leukemia, which is a cancer in blood cells. There are two types of white blood cells that are involved in leukemia and they are granulocytes and lymphocytes. White blood cells are a vital part of your immune system. They protect your body from invasion by bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

My papa was the unfortunate one to get it. Some of the signs that we saw that are risk factors as followed: family history of leukemia, smoking, blood disorders, exposure to high levels of radiation, and chemical exposures. Some of the symptoms that we saw and knew he had it was: excessive sweating, weakness that doesn't go away with rest, red spots on the skin, and fever or chills. When my mom saw these symptoms, she was worried for her dad, and she instantly called the doctors and got him into the hospital.

It was 2005, and I was only 8 years old when this happened. In my mind at that age, I didn't exactly know what was going on. I just went with the flow, and I knew that papa was sick. But in reality, he was hanging on for his life. As the weeks went by, he got worse. He would seem to be getting better and then he went back down. We would be at the hospital for days on end. My sister and I would go to school and then when we got out, we would go straight to the hospital. We would eat and sometimes sleep there so we could be close to him in case anything happened. We would always hate leaving him when we went to school because we didn't want anything to happen to him while we were at school.

May 9, 2005, was a day of sadness. We were at school and we came to the hospital from my dad picking us up. When we arrived at the hospital, we could see my mom by my papa's side, crying. She was holding his hand and mumbling to him. When my mom saw us, she came out of the room and hugged my dad. My dad was crying, too, when they broke apart from their hug. She looked at us both and said, "I'm sorry guys, but papa is gone. He didn't make it." I just looked at my mom like she was crazy. I looked from her to my sister and my sister looked at me, too. As soon as she saw me, we both started to cry. I couldn't believe it. He was finally not here anymore, and we wouldn't be able to go to his house every weekend to play with the kitchen set and have him spoil us with goodies. I had to live with the fact that he wasn't going to be with us. My mom and dad just couldn't have us be there, so they took us home and we just cried there.

When the funeral came up and we had to go, my mom and dad had to try their hardest to drag me away from his casket. He was the very first person that I lost in my life, and it was the hardest to lose someone that you loved and cherished. I will never forget you, papa! Play some bowling up there and win for me! Love you and miss you every day!