About (personal narative)

Life After Death

Ring ring! My 6:00am alarm is blaring and about to fall off my dresser; it’s time for another long day of work at West Oak Jr. High. It’s my 8th grade year in a class of about 150. Every morning I wake up at the same time, jump in the shower, and eat a quick breakfast. Recently, I’ve had to use my mother’s bathroom because my sister’s and I bathroom is, well, you can say under construction. I stumble into my mom’s room where I see that she is tearing up on the phone. I walk over to her and look into her eyes. She turns to me and says, “Papa just had a heart attack [Papa=Grandfather].” My face drops in shock and my body goes numb. My papa is my role model and my best friend, so if anything happened to him I don’t know what I would do. I sit down next to my mom speechless on the bed and wait until she hangs up the phone. She turns to say, “He’s going to be fine, just go take your shower and get ready for school.” Me being completely drained of emotions do as she says and limp in the shower. Once in I immediately start to bawl. I don’t cry very often so it’s a strange and awkward feeling for me. A million questions run through my mind all at one: what’s going to happen to him, will he be all right, will my mom be able to move on, will I?
I dry off, put some cloths on, and head downstairs to the kitchen. My dad already left for work, so it’s just my mom, Kole (Nikole is my sister aka Kole), and myself sitting at the kitchen table all of us having a mixture of gloom and anger in our eyes. Before Kole and I start to say something my mom tells us, “You’re both going to school and will talk about this when you two get home.” Kole uttered, “ But…” before she can start Mom ordered, “That’s final.”
The whole ride to school I don’t say a word. Many of my friends are looking at me, but they can tell something’s bothering me. Once I get to school my buddy Joey asked me, “Hey what’s going on bud? You ight?” I turn to him and just shrug my shoulders and reply, “Nothing much man just a rough day.” I don’t know how to put it to him, so I won’t say anything. After a long day at school I head home to a depressing household. Once I walk in the door I see my sister and my Mom talking on the couch. The first thing that spites out of my mouth, “What happened to him and is he gona be ok?” Mom answered, “ Papa had a heart attack at the club [Golf country club] and they had to use a defibrillator and shock him back to life. He’s in the hospital now.” “So what do we do now?” Mom replied, “I’m getting on a flight tonight to go vis…” Before she could finish my sister and I blurted out, “ we’re coming with you!” “Can you two get out of school?” we both reply, “It’s not an issue. We need to see if he’s alright.” “Alright then will be leaving tonight go pack your things.”
We get on the 9:00 flight to West Palm Beach, FL from O’Hare. Mom and Kole are sleeping on the night flight out, but I can’t sleep after all that’s gone on today. We land around 12:30am local time and a family friend Bill Clouse picks us up. Him and I cram all the bags in the back and drive off towards the hospital. Once we arrive we find out that visiting hours are up and will have to come back in the morning. God I just want to see if he’s all right. Why the hell can’t these assholes just let us in? We head over to my grandparent’s condo and meet up with my grandma. When we walk in Grandma is passed out on couch (she’s glued to it and watching the news religiously).  It’s about 3:00am now and I’m about to pass out. I give my grandma a hug and collapse on the couch in the computer room.
At 6:30am my Mom shakes me to get me up. Everybody but my grandma gets in the car and drives off to the hospital (she has Alzheimer’s disease, so she doesn’t really remember what happened to my papa).  Once we arrive we head straight up to Papa’s room. I walk in to see him sleeping in the hospital bed; it all seems so surreal seeing him in this place.  He wakes up and whispers, “Hey Bunky [Irish nickname he gave me…not really sure what it means] how you doing?” Here my papa’s laying here near death and he asks me how I am. No words to describe how I feel right now. I answer, “I’m doing alright. How you holding up?” “O I’m doing fine…they can’t kill me.” I let a big smile go and I sit down by his side. The four of us sit down and talk for hours. But right as I think that everything is going to be all right the nurse comes in and informs us that Papa needs a triple bypass to fix his aorta is his heart. All of us, except for papa, don’t know what to say; he just comes out and says, “Bring it on…this can’t kill me.” I look at him and he just smiles back.
The next morning I wake up in the chair next to my papa. He wakes up for the first time since surgery and looks at us all and lets a little grin through. He whispers, “Hey Bunky you ready to hit the driving range?” I run over and give him a big old bear hug. I guess never know what you have until it’s gone, but luckily for me, he came back.