Grandma

GRANDMA
            I opened my arms wide and started running towards her.
            To hug her...
             I had been on my way for two hours, in a car, bored of the trip but still excited... I was finally going to see her.
            My Grandma...
            It had been almost three months since we haven't seen each other. I lived in a big city, but Grandma lived in a small one. We didn't get to see each other regularly because it was a 2-hour way from my home to hers. We only saw each other twice a year, on statutory holidays.
            Grandma was a somewhat fat and grayish brown-haired adorable lady. I always felt so warm when I hugged her neck with my short arms.
            Every time I visited her, we spent so much time together. Grandma had a stove in her house. Our national statutory holidays were all in the winter. As a whole family, with my aunt, uncle, parents and cousins, we would all get together in the living room; the warmest place of the house heated by the stove. We would all chat, have cups of tea with home-made pancakes and desserts in that warm room.
            Although the living room was really warm, none of the other rooms had any stoves... In fact, they did; but I rarely saw them heating the rooms, since nobody really sat there.
            It was really hard for us to go to restrooms. On our way to restrooms, we would all feel really cold. It was hard for us to leave the heated living room. All the other rooms were so dark and cold. At nights, we had to leave the living room and go to the cold bedrooms, where we used to pull up the thick comforter and go to sleep.
             I was a little kid then. With my cousin, who was three years older than me, we would beg all others to play games with us. I remember one time, when we begged everyone to perform Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs right in the centre of the living room. When they accepted to perform it, I rushed to the kitchen to grab an apple.
            Besides the time spent in the winter in the living room, we sometimes visited her in summer as well... Both my parents were working at that time, so we didn't have any other time to visit Grandma. In summer time also, we would chat again and again, this time with no stove heating the room.
            Grandma had always been the best cook that I had ever seen. She could cook anything; anything I wanted. I ate the most delicious food in the world until I turned 14...
            On the first day of February, in 2010, I was having a birthday party. I was turning 14 right on that day... My friends and relatives were all there at my home. I was having a lot of fun. Grandma was there, too. But, she did not join us in our living room. In fact, she had been staying in bed for quite a while, like a week or so.
            She was sick.
            I didn't want to think about her sickness during the birthday party. But, I wanted to sit beside her bed, in the bedroom at the back of the house. My parents were regularly checking her to find out if she needed anything or not; though they didn't really let me stay with her on that day. They instead wanted me to have fun with others. I was having fun outside; but inside, I had a lot of pain... I knew that Grandma was not going to live any longer. But still, I had hope, out of necessity.
            Grandma looked so tired; every day and every time after getting in that bed... Mommy and her siblings had decided that it would be better for her to be transferred to a hospital in our city. That's why Grandma was with me on my birthday.
            She had leukemia.
            Twenty five days after my birthday, was a usual school day. Mommy was a teacher working in the same school with me. So, we always went to school together. On that day, in the middle of the first period, a janitor of the school came in and said that I had to go and see the Vice-Principle. When I went out, Mommy was there as well.
            Pain in my chest.
            Mommy was crying. She said she had to go because Grandma wasn't feeling well. She asked me if I wanted to come.
            I wasn't sure. I wasn't even prepared for this question...
            Working in the same school, my mother and the Vice-Principal knew each other, so it was the Vice-Principal who told me that everything was fine and that I could stay at school. So I stayed and headed back to class.
            I wish I hadn't stayed. I wish I could see Grandma for the last time. Everybody was there in her house.
            Everybody but me.
            Goodbye Grandma. I loved you so much. I will never forget you. Thanks for everything and sorry I wasn't there to say goodbye. Please, forgive me.