Mi Abuelito

This week on my blog, I want to talk about mi Abuelito. For the non Spanish speakers, mi abuelito is my grandpa. I love him so much, I was his oldest great grandchild, so I was told I made him feel young again and I was his favorite. My grandpa was funny, loud in a good way, and loving. So loving. He loved so many people and was loved by so many more. I was so excited to find out that i would be spending my spring break with him. I, along with all my cousins, were counting the days until we could see him. The first day of spring break we saw him and we found out that he started losing his memory, and sometimes he wouldn't recognize the people he had known for years. When we found this out we were upset, but at the same time we thought that he MUST remember us. I still remember when we walked into the room and when my brother called his name. Mi abuelito said hi, and that was it. There was no instant recognition, excitement, or his thumbs up that he was known for. We all looked at eachother, could this really be happening? I walked up to him and he recognized my face and he lit up, he gave me his normal firm handshake and a thumbs up. We stood with him throughout that whole day, and we planned to return the next day. I said goodbye to mi abuelito and kissed him on the forehead before leaving.
     The next day we got a call at 5 am. As soon as the phone rang, I knew something was wrong. There was something in the pit of my stomach that told me it wasn't right. My dad picked up, I could already hear my Tia Maria sobbing over the phone, he had lived with his son and daughter in law, Juan and Maria. I slammed my body into the wall behind me and slowly fell towards to floor beneath me. I couldn't believe it, I had just seen him yesterday. My dad told us all to get into the car, we drove to get to that house as fast as we could. When we got there Abuelito was already gone, only our mourning family was left. The only thing we could do at that point was support eachother through the first night.