Throughout my whole life, I grew up with the support of all my friends and family constantly cheering me on at every big milestone that I endured. However, my biggest fan and the person that I looked for at every event was my grandpa. He was always the loudest person in the room no matter where he was. There was not a single person who knew me that did not know him. Whether he was at one of my games or just waiting for me at his house with a full dinner and coke, he always knew how to make me smile. That was his joy in life. He left a lasting impression on every person he met, and he was my best friend. When he first found out that he was sick, I was devastated. His health slowly began to decrease, and the man that I once knew was becoming a new person right before my eyes. However, he never once lost the sparkle in his eyes. He passed away a year after he got sick and for the first time, I felt my heart break. It was extremely tough for my entire family, but we managed to get through it how my grandpa would want us to.  

My grandpa was a proud member of the U.S. Navy, so when he got sick, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his service. He was a very private man, and he always imagined that he would be buried at Lincoln Memorial Cemetery to honor his time in service. So, as a family we decided to honor his wish and have a small get together with our closest friends and family to share the stories of the wonderful man that my grandpa was. Once the ceremony was over, we all went our separate ways and had to continue with life as usual. This was when the true difficulties began. 

It was extremely hard for me to continue on that next week with my softball tournament knowing that my grandpa was not going to be there to cheer me on. For the first fifteen years of my life I had grown up knowing that no matter how I was doing in a game, my grandpa was always going to have my back, so without this, I was unsure of how to continue to play. I did what I could during my games that day, but eventually I couldn’t handle it, I left the game with my dad and broke down. I couldn’t understand why I was playing so poorly when all I wanted to do was make my grandpa proud of me. It took a long time for me to come to terms that day that no matter what, my grandpa will always be proud of me. One bad game was not going to change that. 

This death created problems for everyone in my family. It was extremely difficult for my mom who was so close to her father. She spent months trying to gather her thoughts and figure out how to keep going without him. It took a lot of effort from my family, but once my mom knew that she needed to get better for the rest of us, she pulled herself together and got better. What really got us all through it was one day when we got a call from my grandma. She told us that it would only be right to spread my grandpa’s ashes in the Atlantic Ocean where he was on duty most of the time during the war. We all knew that this is what he would have wanted. So that Thanksgiving my whole family packed up and went down to Key Largo, Florida to send my grandpa off. This gave everyone a sense of hope. My grandpa is happy and he is proud of us and that's all that matters. 

It took a long time to recover from this tragedy, but eventually we all did. We managed to wake up every morning and get through the day like usual, but now we knew that we had an extra guardian angel above us. My grandpa is my best friend and he always will be, he may not still be here, but I know that he is watching over me each day.