I used to love going up to Hastings to visit my Grandma Mac. We would bake cookies or play millions of card games. Then as she got older things got different. All my aunts and uncles decided that it would be best to move her to a nursing home in Omaha to be closer to family if something serious happened.

We would visit her on a weekly basis and she was getting better. We would take her to a park or on a trip to the zoo, and she just loved it. Seeing all the different kinds of animals was her favorite part. Then things started to get rocky. She was developing signs of Alzheimers. It made me so sad to think that Grandma wasn't able to remember my name. You could tell that she remembered you but, she just couldn't put our names with our faces.

On a Thursday, in February, of 2007, she wasn't doing well. That day changed my life completely. That night I was getting ready to go to bed and my Aunt Joyce called at about eleven and said the Grandma was really sick and that she might not make until morning. When my dad told me, it felt like a bullet had gone right through my heart. About an hour later she called again. When my dad finally told me, he tried to do it as gently as possible. He told me that 'grandma has been taken by the spirits and is up in heaven with all of the angels.'

I cried myself to sleep that night and instead of going to school the next day my dad and I went to visit my aunt in Omaha. None of us wanted to say anything because, we were all hoping that is was just a really bad nightmare. We all wanted her to walk right through that door but, she didn't.

That was possibly one of the worst days of my life. I just keep replaying that night in my head. If she were still here with us then she would be going to my volleyball games and my tennis matches. If there was ever a problem she would tell me that everything was going to be all right. I just wish God could have given me one last chance to see my Grandma because, I loved her so much.