Never Underestimate the Impossible

Death is an inevitable fact of nature. Within the past month, I've lost two people close to me. The first was my grandfather. I knew he was sick; he had been a victim of heart attacks in the past, and my family and I knew he could pass any day. When I discovered he was in the hospital again, I did not think it to be anything more serious than before. However, my mother got a phone call at nearly 11 p.m. from my grandmother asking us to come to hospital one night. We stayed until past 1 a.m. even though I had school the next morning. The following day, I left school and spent the day at the hospital. My grandfather was gone by the late afternoon. I spent my week missing days of school and being with visiting family while preparing for the visitation and funeral. It was tough to see my mother and grandmother so upset; they are by far the strongest women I know. It broke me to watch them sob alongside all the others in my family. I had to become the concrete one, the one in the family who cemented everyone else down and gave them someone to lean on. The week was long. The day after the funeral, things seemed to become easier. I went to bed that night, ready for long overdue rest.
Hardly an hour after going to sleep, my phone rang. I ignored it a few times, but then began to realize that someone calling me at midnight on a school night must have something important to tell me. I finally answered what turned out to be the most upsetting phone call I have ever experienced. It was a friend from across town telling me that there was a car accident a few hours prior, and that one of my best friends was in the car. He was pronounced dead on the scene. My heart sank so far into my stomach I thought it might hit the floor. My ears were ringing, and I started becoming dizzy. As soon as I hung up the phone, I lost all composure. How could something so horrible have happened now, of all times? I had just finally gotten through my grandfather's arrangements, and now I was about to be pulled into something far more relevant to me. He had been there for me when nobody else would listen. I had made plans to see him soon. I kept thinking about how I had just spoken to him earlier that day. I just kept asking myself, “Why?!?”
All living beings will die, leaving this world behind and moving into their spiritual eternity. But it isn't the occurrence that upsets us most, it's the timing. We know it will happen eventually, but we never realize it may actually be so soon. Even an expected death can throw you off guard; I am living proof of that. It hits even harder when it happens twice in such a short time span.
Many people experience the loss of someone they care deeply for, but I have yet to find someone who has lost two within the same week under completely different circumstances. Writing about this so soon after it happened is still tough for me; I feel like I will never do justice in my attempts to honor the two that I loved and lost. But it is almost like they are both still here. I cry not from sadness; I cry from all of the memories I have of good times spent with my grandfather and friend.
Some days I wake up and have that empty feeling you get from losing a piece of your heart. I must be good at hiding it because I hear people say I am such a strong person for being able to handle everything that has occurred. What I wish they would see is that even concrete can crack and crumble. And even though I try my best to appear stolid and unmoved, I can break as easily as the rest of them. After all, I am only human.